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Class Tlli^5 
BookJxH 



GERMANIC ORIGINS 



3^6 
3f3>( 



A STUDY IN PRIMITIVE CULTURE 



FRANCIS B. GUMMERE, Ph.D. 

Pbofessob of English in Havbrfokd College 






NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1892 



COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 






PREFACE 

One needs no longer to fetch an oracle, — antiquam 
exquirite matrem^ for example, — in order to compel 
attention when one writes about the sources of lan- 
guage, literature, and institutions of the great Eng- 
lish-speaking race. This volume aims to give an 
account of the founders of that race while they still 
held their old home, their old faith, their old cus- 
toms ; and the sole purpose of these " forewords " is 
to explain what materials and what method have 
been employed. The author has tried to free his 
text from cumbrous allusions, and to put into the 
notes material for wider study. These notes, as well 
as a portion of the introductory chapter, tell the 
reader what sources have been consulted in the 
making of the book itself. Quotations at second 
hand occur only where the authority from which 
they are taken is itself of the first class, such as 
Grimm on mythology, Miillenhoff on archaeology, 
or Waitz on institutions. All quotations from the 
range of Early Germanic literature are at first hand, 

and the same statement holds good of classical 

iii 



iv PREFACE 

sources like Tacitus or Csesar. Translations from 

Anglo-Saxon and German poetry have been made 

by the author; those from the Edda are in the 

majority of cases by Vigfusson and Powell, but are 

always duly credited. 

F. B. G. 

Haverford College, 21 December, 1891. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 



Germanic and Celtic in the English race — Appearance of the 
Germanic element in European history — Clash of Roman and 
German — Sources of information about the early Germans — 
Chronological and geographical data — Germania of Tacitus 
chief authority — The Ingaevonic tribes. 



CHAPTER II 
LAND AND PEOPLE 



7 7 

The German in Germany — His former home — Inherited and 

actual culture — Country and cliniate — Pastures, flocks, and 
herds — Nomad or farmer ? — Boundaries. 



CHAPTER III 

MEN AND WOMEN 57 

Stature and features*^ A fair-haired race— Sense of personal 
beauty — Food and drink — Habits of daily life — Clothing — 
Adornments. 

CHAPTER IV 

THE HOME 90 

Hatred of cities — Underground dwellings — Houses wooden and 
frail — Construction, and later improvements — The burg, and 
the hall — Descriptions in Beowulf — Banquet, songs, flyting, 
etc. — Amusements and vices — Hunting — The primitive house 
compared with modern dwellings. 

V 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER V 

HUSBAND AND WIFE 129 

The husband a warrior, the wife housekeeper and farmer — 
Rights of women — Germanic chastity — Woman as sibyl — Her 
courage — Wooing and wedding — How far love was a factor — 
Dower or price — Ceremony of marriage — Punishment for infi- 
delity. 

CHAPTER VI 

THE FAMH^Y 162 

Hospitality and gifts — Responsibilities of the head of a family 
— Importance of kinship — Conflicting duties — Feud — Wer- 
gild, and other substitutes for feud — Paternal power — Expos- 
ure — Education of children — Names — Old age. 



CHAPTER VII 

TRADE AND COMMERCE 206 

Household industries — The smith — Commerce — Exports — 
Amber — Myths relating to commerce and seaf earing — Ships — 
Love of the sea — Money and bargains. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE WARRIOR 226 

Military service of two kinds — War the chief business of Ger- 
manic life — Courage — Tj^es of the warrior — Cowardice — 
Germanic weapons — Armor — Cavalry — Importance of the in- 
fantry — Tactics of the army — The onset — Second kind of 
military service — The Comitatus — Its meaning in Germanic 
life and history — Age at which the German took up arms. 



CHAPTER IX 

SOCIAL ORDER 270 

The king originally a creation of the race — His authority and 
duties — Inheritance and election — Ideals — The queen — Nobles 
by birth and by office — The Germanic freeman — The freedman ^» 
and the slave — The alien. 



CONTENTS vii 

CHAPTER X 
GOVERNMENT AND LAW 289 

Gifts, not taxes — Organization of government — Elements of 
monarchy and of democracy — Popular councils and assem- 
blies—The town-meeting — Legal system — The function of 
priests in civil administration — Punishments for crime — Forms 
of law — Ordeal and trial by battle. 

CHAPTER XI 
THE FUNERAL 305 

The weapon-death — Burning and burial — The former a primi- 
tive Germanic habit — The mound or barrow — Its position — 
What was burnt or buried with the dead — Sacrifice of the liv- 
ing — Ship burials — The land of souls — Germanic horror of the 
grave — The elegiac mood in our poetry — Games and feasts at 
the funeral — Ceremonies at the burial of Attila and of Beowulf. 

CHAPTER XII 
THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 337 

Germanic religion in general — Cult and creed — Heathen scepti- 
cism — Agreement of old and new faiths — Cult of ancestors, 
and superstitions about the dead — Survivals — All Souls — 
Swiss customs — Heathen rites made Christian — The patron- 
saint and thefylgja. 

CHAPTER XIII 
THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 366 



Dualism in worship — Spirits of the natural world — House- 
spirits — Spirits of the air — The Mighty Women — Charms — 
Th'e Wild Hunt — Spirits of the earth — Wood-spirits — Tree- 
worship — Water-spirits and well- worship — The Swan-maidens 
— Giants — Worship of the elements — Water, air, and fire — 
Mother Earth — Sun, moon, and stars — Day, night, and the 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE WORSHIP OF GODS 416 

Germanic gods and goddesses — Evidence of their cult— The 
days of the week — Woden — Thunor — Tins — Nerthus, and 
the Ingsevonic group — Other deities. 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XV 
FORM AND CEREMONY 440 

Places of worship — Temples — Images and columns — Priest 
and priestess — Prayer, offering and sacrifice — Survivals — 
Divination and auguries — Runes. 

CHAPTER XVI 

THE HIGHER MOOD 472 

Public and private standard of morals — Ideals of the race — 
Esthetics — Germanic faith — Notions about a future life — Con- 
clusion. 



GBEMANIC ORIGINS 



A STUDY IN PRIMITIVE CULTURE 



" Under the drums and tramplings of three 
conquests. ..." 

Sir Thomas Bbownb 



GERMANIC ORIGINS 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

Germanic and Celtic in the English race — Appearance of the 
Germanic element in European history — Clash of Roman and 
German — Sources of information about the early Germans — 
Chronological and geographical data — Germania of Tacitus chief 
authority — The Ingsevonic tribes. 

Who were the founders of our race? Working 
backwards, up the stream of national descent, we 
come to the great influx of Norman people, Norman 
words, Norman ways ; and we stop to reckon with 
this fact in the development of English life. A very- 
brief study, a few minutes of consideration, assure us 
that here are no founders of England, but only gen- 
erous "contributors ; immigrants we may call them, who 
brought along valuable property, and furnished us 
with some new and desirable elements of civilization. 
Again, and for still stronger reasons, we reach the 
same conclusion with regard to that earlier conquest 
of England by the Northmen. The Danes gave us a 
few words, — the common vocable " are," for example, 
— a few customs, a few laws ; and that is the whole 

1 



2 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

story. It lies, therefore, between the Celts, the peo- 
ple whom Csesar found in his Britain, and the Ger- 
manic invaders and conquerors who seized upon the 
island when the Roman legions were withdrawn. Of 
these two claimants, the latter race is recognized by 
history and criticism as furnishing the real foundation 
of our national life. True, there is more or less oppo- 
sition in the matter of actual descent. We are Ger- 
manic in our institutions, concedes Professor Huxley ; 
but the race itself is at least half Celtic in its blood. 
" Not one half," Mr. Grant Allen is inclined to think, 
"of the population of the British Isles is really of 
Teutonic descent ; " and he carries the battle into 
still remoter territory when he concedes our language 
to Germanic origins, but claims our literature, espe- 
cially the imagination displayed in it, for Celtic influ- 
ences. Furthermore, the greatest of our critics in 
literary matters, the late Matthew Arnold, has broken 
a lance for this Celtic influence in our national devel- 
opment, and is half inclined to answer the question, 
"What is England?" by saying, "A vast obscure 
Cymric basis with a vast visible Germanic super- 
structure."^ In particular, Arnold attributes so high 
a quality of our literature as its humor — and what 
quality is so peculiarly its own, so triumphantly its 
own? — to the dash of Celtic impulse and fancy, 
clashing with our Germanism.^ And he goes on to 
say, that our poetry probably got its turn for style, 
probably its turn for melancholy, and certainly its 
" natural magic," from the Celtism in our character. 
Such statements as these from a man who on his own 

1 On the Stndtj of Celtic Literature (Macmillan & Co., 1883), p. 64. 

2 Ibid. p. 101. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

ground had no rivals deserve most careful considera- 
tion. Arnold, however, is off his own ground when 
he asserts that rhyme, which he calls the main source 
of the romantic element in our poetry, " comes . , . 
from the Celts." Kluge has shown, in an article deal- 
ing with strictly scientific evidence, that our Anglo- 
Saxon poetry, which already possessed that form of 
rhyme loosely called alliteration, was in its own 
fashion developing that form which we commonly 
understand when we use the general term.i Now 
this mistake of Arnold's, trifling as it may be, shows 
us the need of very severe tests when we attempt to 
pass judgment on questions so intricate and rooted 
in such difficult and distant soil. It is a little too loud 
protesting when Mr. Grant Allen, though he may 
well be quite in the right, lays down the positive law 
that " our modern poetry " — and a fortiori^ our prose,^ 
— " is wholly Romance in descent, form, and spirit." 
We are tempted to ask Mr. Allen for definitions, for 
sources, for proof. It is just the same hesitation that 
besets us when he says that while our social and 
political organization must be regarded as Germanic, 
this Germanic element did nothing for our culture, 
which is "wholly Roman." ^ 

1 Ibid. p. 120 ; Kluge in Paul-Braune, Beitrdge zur Geschichte d. 
deutschen Sprache u. Literatur, Vol. IX. 

2 Anglo-Saxon prose is vigorous, and sometimes, as in ^Ifric, not 
without a certain compactness and form. But every one knows that 
the best qualities in the older period of English prose — as in Hooker 
or Milton — were Latinistic, and that the best qualities in the later 
period are distinctly indebted to the French. 

3 See Grant Allen, Anglo-Saxon Britain, pp. 106, 224, 227. For the 
other side, see Professor Freeman, — who opposes "the witness of 
speech" to "the witness of skulls," and insists on the continuity of 
our race from Schleswig to New England, — in Ms Four Oxford Lec- 
tures, 1887 (Macmillan & Co., 1888), especially pp. 71, 78, of the lecture 
on Teutonic Conquest in Gaul and Britain. 



4 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Granting all that these critics claim, we find in their 
concessions of speech, custom and law, broad enough 
basis for our assumption that the Germanic race is 
the source of English life, and that the Germanic 
invaders of Britain may fairly be styled founders of 
England. Moreover, in regard to the disputed terri- 
tory, while we feel sure that Arnold has considerable 
justice in his claims for Celtic liveliness as a factor 
in the imaginative qualities of our literature, we do 
not wish to see the Germanic element fairly elbowed 
out of our poetry. We are willing to concede that 
Prospero found his Ariel on the island; but what 
shall we say of Prospero himself ? 

Vom Vater hab' ich die Statur, 

Des Lebens ernstes Fiihren, 
Von Miitterchen die Frohnatur 

Und Lust zu f abuliren, — 

sang Goethe of his own " origins " ; and father Ger- 
manic and mother Celtic may have contributed the 
same elements in the case of English poetry. But 
Mr. Grant Allen says that our Germanic origin gave 
our literature " patience and thoroughness," and noth- 
ing more.^ 

It is little better than beating the air to argue in 
general terms against these random conclusions. It 
is a question of facts ; and we must first of all inquire 
how we can best reach the facts. We could take that 
complex mass which we call English Literature, and 
by a grand Quellenjagd^ such as the modern German 
loves, spread origins and sources over every land and 
time. It is easy with a certain facility in tailor-lore 

1 Ibid. p. 229. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

to show how oddly this literature is "suited," to trace 
the doublet to Italy and the round-hose to France, — 
pretty sport and often profitable, — but how is it with 
the flesh and blood of literature ? Is the heart of our 
literature Germanic or Celtic ? Or is it neither ? Is 
it rather the result of classical or even Romance tra- 
ditions ? How can we so much as begin to answer 
these questions until we know what " Germanic " 
means ? If we wish to know what elements in our 
literature or our life we ought to refer to the Ger- 
manic invaders of Britain, it is of prime importance 
to study this Germanic invader in his habit as he 
lived. He is the subject of these pages ; and it is to 
be hoped that a view of him, in different types and 
periods, may leave some general impressions — we 
may not hope for a sharp picture — of the Germanic 
character. 

Our knowledge of the early German must be de- 
rived from three main sources, — the accounts of his 
foreign contemporaries, the early literature of Ger- 
manic races, and survivals ; the G-ermania of Tacitus, 
our Anglo-Saxon Beoivulf^ and the church festival of 
All Souls, are respectively examples of the three 
sources. In all of these classes our material must be 
sift6d with extremest caution, but particularly in the 
second and third. No direct literature remains to us 
from the Germans of Tacitus, and the songs ^ about 
god or hero which they chanted in those early days 
have perished quite beyond the faintest hope of recov- 
ery. But heroic legend was richly developed by the 
Germans of the " Wandering," the period when Roman 
and barbarian were opposed in the hottest struggle ; 

1 Tac. Germ. II. ; Ann. II. 88. 



6 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

and these legends have passed with more or less p*irity 
into early Germanic literature. The Christian setting 
often contains a purely heathen jewel. 

Evidently, with material scattered over so great a 
stretch of time, one is in danger of rescuing no old 
German at all, but rather of holding up a bit of liter- 
ary patchwork, a veritable scarecrow of ill-matched 
garments passing for a man. The danger is real ; but 
it must be remembered that a type is far easier to 
establish for primitive than for modern times. Facts 
have wider bearings and life is more uniform of tone, 
the further we go back in history. Early times lacked 
diversity of employment, fine divisions in the drift of 
thought and feeling. It is civilization which brings 
out the individual and lays emphasis on his impor- 
tance, — consider the "interview," — which creates 
distinctions, and puts a thousand angles of vision 
to-day for a hundred in the past. One reason why 
Shakspere seems so much more modern than Chau- 
cer is that the latter still drew types, while the former 
drew men and women. The Squire becomes Romeo, 
and the Wife of Bath yields to Mrs. Quickly of East- 
cheap. What we must particularly avoid is to con- 
fuse types, to treat on one plane the German of Taci- 
tus and the German who has absorbed elements of 
classical and Christian culture. The players of the 
fifth act must not be huddled in one group with the 
simple and hardy characters who open the action and 
set the play upon its path of development. First 
of all, moreover, we must glance at the stage itself 
on which our German made his rude and clanging 
entrance ; we must study the scene. 

Civilization in the first centuries of our era re- 



introductio:n' 7 

volved about the Mediterranean, where a complex of 
races was held together by the organizing genius of 
Rome. But the Roman state was in decay ; its lack 
of moral greatness combined with certain political and 
physical defects to bring about what a French scholar 
has called the " mortal illness " of epochs which are 
destitute of lofty aims and firmness of conviction. The 
slow " death of Rome," ^ consequence of this malady, 
may be said to begin with the invasion of Alaric in 
402, and to end with the invasion of Alboin in 568. 
With the latter name we touch mediseval literature ; 
for Alboin is mentioned in our oldest piece of Anglo- 
Saxon poetry, in the curious medley of description 
and memories put into the mouth of an ideal Ger- 
manic minstrel, Widsith, " the far-wanderer." 

When the historian begins to reckon the causes of 
downfall, he has the right to put first and foremost 
the general corruption of the age. But, as was just 
now hinted, there were other and specific causes,^ such 
as thriftless administration of public and private prop- 
erty, excess of taxation, and high cost of living. The 
individual was crushed by the dead weight of im- 
perial organization. Trade and manufactures must 
needs languish; science led to no practical results; 
and there was absolutely no material progress to keep 
pace with wider responsibilities. As Hehn remarks, 
the empire stretched further and further, and yet 
Roman ships remained what they always had been, 
coasting vessels, unable to contend with the perils of 
winter or the open sea. Where commerce did find 

1 Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, I. 3. 

2 Best summed up by Victor Hehn in his wholly admirable book 
Culturpflanzen und Haiisthiere in ihreni Uebergang aus Asien, u.s.to., 
4th ed., Berlin, 1883, p. 394 ff. 



!/ 



N 



8 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

its way, it gave no spur to invention, and accom- 
plished little for the arts of life ; like the sailor, the 
farmer clung to the methods and implements of his 
forefathers. In the world of mind it was no better, 
and literature gradually lost itself in rhetoric, its 
only remaining form. A deep scepticism prevailed, 
stifling all creative joy; the old gods were merely 
excuses for a priesthood, objects of a cult in which 
no one really believed. 

Over and through this outworn civilization swept 
two great waves, — Christianity from the east, Ger- 
manic invasion from the north. In one sense, both 
of these movements were hurtful to literature ; for 
the invaders doubtless annihilated a mass of precious 
material, and what they spared was often the prey of 
monkish bigotry .^ As a piece of revenge, the answer- 
ing wave of culture, the reacting civilization which 
carried rudiments of criticism and letters among the 
barbarians, went far toward destroying whatever na- 
tive elements of literature were to be found. The 
spirit of Christianity rudely checked the development 
of the heathen epic poetry; and such song as had 
reached form and substance was put under ban. The 
Frankish or Saxon monk disdained in most cases the 
artless poetry of his vernacular ; and in the hands of 
the monk lay all destiny of letters. Still, in that 
general wreck of literature, it was Christianity which 

1 See the famous story of the Athenian libraries which the Goths 
were about to burn during a raid into Greece, near the end of the third 
century. It is told in Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Chap. X. The " big- 
otry," by the way, was not always "monkish." Under Valentinian 
and Valens the persecutions on account of supposed " magic " involved 
the destruction of a vast amount of philosophical and classical litera- 
ture ; and this was a political, not simply theological persecution. See 
Gibbon, Chap. XXV., and Hodgkin, Italy, I. 40. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

manned the only life-boat. Christian zeal rescued 
many precious remnants of classical culture, keeping 
them for a time that could use and value them aright. 
Patriotic monks were here and there found who 
would set down the songs and legends of the father- 
land, notwithstanding occasional survivals of heathen- 
dom which crept between the lines, — so we have a 
Beowulf^ a Lay of Hildebrand ; or else the old sub- 
jects were treated in the new style, as where German 
Ekkehard sings in vigorous Latin hexameters the 
story of Walter and Hildegund. 

This last example brings us to the greatest service 
which the church ever did for the cause of letters. 
It established a neutral ground on which classics and 
barbarism could in some manner join hands and so 
save what was best in each. Christianity inspired an 
international literature. Despised by the learning of 
a riper age, this literature nevertheless saved the 
classics and preserved those early records of the Ger- 
manic nations which we now value beyond price. To 
it we moderns owe what a great scholar owes to the 
simple books and lessons of his first school-days. With 
its universal medium of Latin, it controlled and shaped 
the beginnings of every literature which arose in the 
states of Europe. Its great advantage was univer- 
sality ; its defect was monotony. It already realized, 
as Ebert points out,^ the later dream and longing of 
Goethe for a World-Literature ; but it lacked the vital- 
ity of a national consciousness, is everywhere the same, 
and has an air of saying its lesson, — not always too 

1 The standard work for this subject : Adolf Ebof J, Allgemeine Ges- 
chichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im Ahendlande, 3 vols., Leipzig, 
1874-1887. 



10 GERMANIC OPvIGINS 

fluently, — after its teacher.^ This Christian Latin lit- 
erature was the village-school of learned Europe ; but 
while it trained, it could not create. The vital power 
of mediseval literature lay in the poetic impulses of 
old Germanic life, — we are speaking here of the 
northern nations alone, — in that joy of " singing and 
saying" which our forefathers brought out of their 
forests. The original songs have vanished. One lay 
about Arminius, such as Tacitus assures us was sung 
in his time, were worth its millions. But the later 
legends, which sprang up with the national con- 
sciousness in the victories over eastern and western 
Romans, still keep the early note and give us some of 
our best material for studying the ancient German. 
True, they are inspired by contact with civilization, 
but the contact calls out a national and original 
utterance. 

It is in the first flush of Germanic conquest, in the 
clash of a fresh, ignorant race with a corrupt, out- 
worn but highly civilized race, in the awakening 
of national consciousness, that we should like to 
make our picture of the ancient German. But 
such a picture is no easy affair. The clash of Ger- 
many and Rome lasted five hundred years ; and the 
Goth had grown as civilized as the Romans at a time 
when his Saxon brother was still the barbarian of 
Tacitus. We must look to our historical and geo- 
graphical perspective. 

The pressure of Germanic invasion which finally 
burst the barriers of Rome was not altogether spon- 

1 " One feels," says MiillenhofE, "that the early middle ages wore 
another color and spoke another speech than we find in their chronicles 
and documents." Deutsche Alter thwnskiinde, Vol. I. Vorrede, p. v. 



INTRODUCTION 11 

taneous. For a long time previous to the fall of 
the empire, there had been a restless movement in 
the heart of Germany; and while we find some ex- 
planation for this in the nomadic character and mili- 
tary instincts of the race, we must attribute no small 
share to the pressure of Huns and other tribes upon 
Germans of the east and north. The actual " move- 
ment of the tribes," or Volkerwanderung^ is usually 
referred to a round century from the flight of 
the West-Goths into Roman territory, — they were 
driven by the Huns, — until the fall of the Western 
Empire.^ The late Professor Scherer tells us ^ that 
the historic consciousness of the Germans dates from 
this movement ; and we may say that it was during 
this entire period that German after German came out 
of his barbaric environment and took up that strange 
battle between an old civilization and a new race in 
which each is victor and each is vanquished. It is 
in this period that we have the real conflict between 
Roman and German, a struggle along the entire line 
and fought for life or death; but there had been 
many a previous encounter. Southern Aryans first 
heard of their kinsmen in the north, not so much by 
conquest, as in the peaceful way of trade. Miillen-/ 
hoff is of opinion ^ that nearly all the supply of tin, 
came from Britain, and that the trade began in times 
too early for computation. Tin was needed for the 
making of bronze ; but another eagerly sought article 
was valued for itself. Amber — it is mentioned in 
the Odyssey — was in all probability the means of 
putting Greeks in communication with the shores of 

1 See F. Dahn, Bausteine, I. 282. s 2). A. 1. 211. 

2 Geschichte d. deutschen Lit. p. 22. 



12 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the Baltic, and with the Germanic tribes who lived 
there. Greek coins of the fifth and sixth centuries 
before Christ have been found near the Baltic ; but 
in Miillenhoff's opinion, commerce at that time was 
indirect, and articles were forwarded from tribe to 
tribe. The first person, therefore, who brought to the 
Greeks a definite knowledge of the north, was Pytheas 
of Marseilles, a Grecian geographer of the fourth cen- 
tury before Christ, who " followed the old path of 
the Phoenicians," and was an eye-witness of the tin- 
mining processes in Britain.^ He went further. We 
may assume, concludes Miillenhoff, after a most elab- 
orate investigation, " that Pytheas saw with his own 
eyes the islands and shores of the North Sea, passed 
the mouths of the Rhine, and the boundary between 
Celts and Scytho-Teutons ; but found it best to 
push no further among unknown races, and so con- 
tented himself for the rest with what he heard of 
them." 2 

Thus, so far as we know, came the first tidings 
about our ancestors to the ancient world. Their first 
actual appearance on the border of the civilized coun- 
tries about the Mediterranean, is not definitely set- 
tled. Miillenhoff thinks the Bastarnse were Germanic, 
a tribe mentioned by Tacitus and Pliny; they appeared 
on the lower Danube about the beginning of the 
second century before Christ. A king of Macedonia 

1 Miillenhoff, B. A. I. 375, 472. "The Humboldt of antiquity," as 
Pytheas is called, is also discussed, with less critical knowledge, by 
Elton, Origins of English History, p. 6 ff. It should be added that 
Professor Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 47, says there was no direct trade 
between Cornwall and the continent, and adds that there is no "scrap 
of evidence, linguistic or other, of the presence of Phoenicians in 
Britain at any time." 

2 D. A. I. 495. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

is said^ to have sent an embassy to them and to 
have asked them for troops as allies. According 
to Miillenhoff, the Bastarnse came from the neigh- 
borhood of the upper Vistula, attracted by southern 
fertility ; in the third century of our era they vanish 
utterly. 

Next of Germanic races to tread the tempting but 
perilous path southward were the Cimbrians and 
Teutons. A large part of the second volume of 
Miillenhoff's great work on German Archaeology, the 
Deutsche Alterthumskunde, is devoted to a searching 
investigation into the details, scanty and disconnected 
as they are, which Greek and Roman writers have left 
us in regard to this movement, — a movement which, 
like the battle of Marathon, though less decisively, 
struck into the very heart of history .2 Miillenhoff 
makes ^ it strongly probable that these tribes were 
Germanic, and that their names — for the later term 
' Germanic ' was not used at Rome till about 80 B.C.* — 
were given to them by neighboring Celts. Cimbrians ^ 
may be translated " robbers," and Teutons " bands," or 
"multitudes." They came, after a succession of Celtic 
movements had left vacant tracts between the Weser 
and the Rhine, from the old home of the Germans, a 
region bounded by the Oder, the Harz mountains, 
and the Thuringian hills. Till a couple of xenturies 
before Christ, if Miillenhoff is right, this girdle of 

1 For references, see Zeuss, Die Deutschen und ihre Nachhar- 
stamme, p. 129. Zeuss says without reservation : " Die Bastarnen siud 
das erste deutsche Volk welches auf dem Schauplatze der Geschichte 
auftritt. ..." 

2 The author reminds us that it is now about two thousand years 
since that Cimbrian terror heralded the Germanic invasion of Europe. 

3 D. A. II. 207. 4 Ibid. II. 189. 

5 The name has nothing to do with " Cymry," etc. Ibid. II. 116. 



14 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

primeval forest ^ had separated the Germans from 
the Celts. Now they broke their bounds and streamed 
southward, the Cimbrians a swarm made up from 
various tribes along the middle Elbe,^ the Teutons 
mainly from the coasts of the North Sea. The 
Romans had a tradition that this great invasion was 
caused by floods, which drove Cimbrians and Teutons 
out of their homes " in the uttermost parts of the 
earth." ^ 

What havoc they wrought in Italy we know from 
Livy and Plutarch.* Rome was saved at Aquse Sex- 
tise by the genius of Marius ; and the great barbarian 
wave melted away to the northward almost as suddenly 
as it had come. Not very long afterward, however, 
a kinsman of Marius, bent on the conquest of Celtic 
Gaul, found, across his path and intent on the same 
errand, an army from east of the Rhine, the hordes of 
Ariovistus the German. Csesar was quick to see that 
here was the deadliest foe of Rome.^ The destruction 
of the Suevians, the Rhine-bridge, the legions led upon 
German soil, are evidences of Caesar's greatness as 
statesman as well as soldier. His achievements not 
only furnished a model for the few victorious cam- 
paigns of his successors, not only saved Gaul to 
the Romans, but in the judgment of competent men, 
prolonged by centuries the very existence of Rome 

1 See also Kiepert, Alte Geographie, p. 535. 

^n.A. II. 289. 

3 Dahn (see next note) finds this notion credible. 

^ A vivid account of the invasion is given by Dahn, Urgeschichte 
der germanischen und romanischen Volker, in Vol. II. Of course, Plu- 
tarch's Marius is the most detailed ancient account. 

5 Read, Bell. Gall. I. 33, his own words upon this danger to his 
country. Chapters 43-46, describing the interview of Ctesar and Ario- 
vistus, have high dramatic interest. 



INTRODUCTION 15 

itself. There is something almost theatrical in that 
opening clash of arms between the conquerors of the 
world, with perhaps the greatest of all generals at 
their head, and a mass of half -naked barbarians, — in 
this beginning of a war which lasted for five hundred 
years, which saw the old world with its arts and 
learning go down in wreck, and the new world 
arise in all its incompleteness and rawness, but in 
all its immense and eager vitality. Rude as they 
were, these Germans henceforth held a foremost place 
in the eyes of statesmen who knew how to estimate 
the perils of the empire. Germans were sought as 
soldiers, as allies ; the two nations came in touch ; 
what Germans were and what they did became a 
matter of interest. Csesar fixed his keen eye upon 
them ; a century or so later came Tacitus and studied 
them. Roman statecraft now bought, now fought, 
but always kept planning the destruction of such 
unwelcome neighbors. At first, Drusus and Ger- 
manicus almost completed Caesar's policy of con- 
quest ; but later this was given up, and a system of 
border fortifications^ threw the Germans back upon 
themselves, brought about their solidarity, checked 
the old nomadic driftings of the tribes, and organized 
them into nations. Four centuries of wars and treaties, 
bribes and bargains, — the Germans fighting together 
against the Romans, as allies with the Romans, and 
against one another, — must have sent a vast amount 
of civilization, both for good and for evil, across the 

1 The so-called Limes ran from about the junction of Lahn and Rhine 
to a point near the junction of the Altmiihl and the Danube. This 
line was held by the Romans for two centuries. See Arnold, Deutsche 
Urzeit, p. 81 f . 



16 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Rhine. Indeed, most of the early lessons which Ger- 
mans learned of Rome seem to have lain in the 
direction of perfidy and bribes. " We have taught 
them," even Tacitus could say, "to take our money; " ^ 
and they soon became skilled in the art of selling a 
treaty, and of breaking it. Vellejus ^ says that the 
Germans, for all their barbarism, are thoroughly sly 
and seem born for lying and deceit. But this opinion 
is provoked by the victory over Varus. J Large bodies 
of soldiers were formed who lived along the Roman 
border, separated from the good influences of home 
and family,^ and exposed to all the vices of mercenary 
warfare ; centuries of this life must have destroyed 
much of the old Germanic virtue. The low-water 
mark of Germanic morals was reached by the Mero- 
vingian Franks. Stubbs does not seem to think that 
much change was wrought in Germanic character 
during the early part of the period we have described. 
The institutions of our forefathers, he believes, re- 
mained practically the same for the two centuries 
succeeding the time of Tacitus; "nor is there any 
occasion to presume a development in the direction 
of civilization." * Much of this may be true for the 
remote tribes, for Angles and Saxons ; but the border 

1 Germ. XV. 2 n. 118. 

3 See Loebell, Grec/or von Tours, 2d ed. p. 75 f. A description of 
certain German tribes, who were still heathen, and whose virtues are 
held up to the dissolute Christians of Rome and Gaul, is often quoted : 
"Gothorum gens perfida, sed pudica est [the Goths held the Arian 
heresy] , Alamannorum impudica sed minus perfida. Franci mendaces, 
sed hospitales, Saxones crudelitate efferi, sed castitate mirandi." That 
is, the Goths are faithless but chaste, Alamannians unchaste but less 
treacherous, Franks liars but hospitable, Saxons ferociously cruel but 
of admirable chastity. Salvianus, however, has a suspicious leaning 
toward antithesis. See Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed. III. 1 f. 

4 Co7ist. Hist. England, I. 37. 



INTRODUCTION 17 

and interior tribes of Germany must have changed 
greatly, and some faint ripple of these changes may 
have reached the north. Victor Helm, in the admira- 
ble book already quoted,^ says that the Romanizing 
process began before the movement of the tribes; 
and he calls attention to the great part played by 
Belgium in mediating between culture and barbarism. 

With the overthrow of the empire we have a level- 
ling of walls and dikes, a rush of strange elements in 
each direction. Barbarians sit on the throne of the 
Caesars, and Roman laws are current in the forests 
of Arminius. Over all is the mediation of the new 
faith. Wattenbach reminds us that while later ac- 
counts attribute the spread of the Christian religion 
to individuals, apostles like Boniface or bishops 
and missionaries like Augustine, in reality much 
was done by persons of no name or fame, — mer- 
chants, soldiers, laborers, — converted men, who 
worked in many places and with great effect.^ We 
can extend this humble but potent influence to other 
fields. Culture of every kind must have been car- 
ried in this fashion to all parts of northern Europe, 
which were open to Roman and German. 

Enough has now been said to show that our typi- 
cal German, like Plato's ideal horse, is a very difficult 
matter to define and draw ; and, indeed, he has been 
drawn in every shade from absolute savagery to a 
graceful and accomplished person, as unlimited in 
courtesy and intellect as in muscular development, 
who "cultive ses jardins, les vertus et les arts." 
Jacob Grimm had some indulgence for this nobler 

1 p. 403. 

2 Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter, 5th 
ed. p. 37 f . See also Winckelmann, Geschichte der Angelsachsen, p. 22. 



18 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

type; and while one would rather err with Grimm 
than be right with Adelung, one must nevertheless 
admit that love for the Germanic past has sometimes 
carried even the greatest scholar of our century too 
far. There are two assumptions. One is that the 
German of Tacitus was a mere nomadic barbarian, 
and all attributes of civilization found in him a few 
centuries later are the result of contact with Rome. 
The other assumption clothes the primitive German 
with these same attributes, — that is, with the virtues 
and mental habit, if not with the accomplishments, 
of civilization. The advocates of both theories can 
find in the chaos of material whatever facts they 
need. In recent times, modern savage life has been 
heavily drawn upon to supply pictures of early 
Germanic culture. It is the disciples of ethnology 
who depict our ancestor in such a degraded guise ; 
while the philologists still paint a portrait that glows 
with too many hues of civilization.^ Of course it is 
the point of view that is continually shifted with 
such disastrous results. What an enormous differ- 
ence between the Germany of Boniface and the 
Germany of Tacitus or Caesar! We turn from the 
idle, half-naked brawler of the Crermania, the chief- 
tain of Tacitus, to Theodoric the Goth quoting Taci- 
tus himself on the subject of amber ..." Cornelio 
scribente,'" he says, just as any Roman would give us 
a line of Virgil.^ 

1 Wackernagel thought a fair mean could be obtained by taking the 
civilization of the Greeks as described by Homer, and assuming the 
same stage for primitive Germany. See Kleinere Schri/ten, I. 2. 

2 The king — through Cassiodorus — is thanking a tribe by the Baltic 
for certain gifts of amber. See Cassiod. Var. V. 2, quoted by Dahn, 
Bcnisteme, 1. 17. 



INTRODUCTION 19 

Basis of our description must be the Germania 
of Tacitus. But we are justified in adding to this 
picture those traits of Germanic temperament which 
were developed under pressure of the later struggle 
with Rome. Thus the virtues of Siegfried are not 
classical or Roman virtues ; they are the attributes of 
an ideal German of the warrior type, blending with 
conceptions of the Germanic myth. But where are 
we to stop in this process? Where shall we draw 
the line which separates Germanic from Christianized 
and Romanized Germanic ? The answer is involved 
in the question. Christian faith and Roman culture, 
from the time of the tribal movement on, went hand 
in hand ; and -where the German stands hostile to 
these, he must retain most of his primitive character- 
istics. Now the West-Goths were converted in the 
fourth century, about 375, then the East-Goths and 
Vandals ; early in the fifth century the Burgundians, 
later the Franks; in the sixth, Alamannians and 
Lombards; Bavarians in the seventh and eighth; 
Frisians, Hessians, and Thuringians in the eighth; 
Saxons in the ninth. This is for the Continent. 
Anglo-Saxons were converted about 600, and took 
the lion's share in converting their continental breth- 
ren. Scandinavians accepted Christianity in the 
tenth and eleventh centuries.^ It is evident not only 
that these tribes must have varied in the extent and 
accuracy of their heathen traditions, but also that we 
are at liberty to use primitive material even when we 
find it covered with more or less theological varnish 

1 Legend said that King Arthur had conquered and Christianized 
Norway and Iceland, and it even went so far as to make the apostles 
themselves carry the gospel to Scandinavia. 



20 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

from the hands of a monkish scribe. Moreover, let 
us remember that the epoch of heroic legends was 
closed about the end of the sixth century, when at 
least half the Germanic tribes were unconverted. 
The Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and perhaps Danes, who 
conquered and settled Britain in the fifth century, 
were absolute heathens ; and it needed three hun- 
dred years more to bring the gospel to those swamps 
and forests which stretched along the German ocean 
and into the Cimbrian peninsula. The continental 
Saxons had the reputation of great conservatism, and 
up to the time of the exodus to Britain had wan- 
dered least of all the Germanic tribes. ^ We must 
therefore be careful to abstract from our notion of 
the Germanic settlers of England whatever traits, 
found in the continental German, are to be ascribed 
to a long contact with Christianity and Roman 
culture. 

Chronology in some wise determined, and enough 
historical perspective assured for our purpose, we 
need to fix clearly the geographical limits and divis- 
ions of Germany. All work done in this field rests, 
in the first instance, on the information given us by 
Tacitus ; and we must face the question of credibility. 
What of the Crermania? There have been doubts 
raised regarding the trustworthiness of this book, 
none, perhaps, going so far as a general denial, but in 
one instance at least, making, if successfully proved, 
utter havoc of all foundation for the modern historian. 
In Dr. Latham we have the most outspoken enemy 
of the Germania; he assails its ethnography and 
opposes its statements. " Much," he says, " which is 

1 Dahn, Urgeschichte der gennan. und roman. Volker, II. 307, 



i 



INTRODUCTION 21 

held to be German is Slavonic," and he insists that 
there were " Slavonians from the Teutoburger Wald 
to the Vistula." ^ These assertions of Dr. Latham 
are rejected utterly by modern criticism. There is, 
however, another sort of opposition, not yet silent, 
which attacks not so much facts as motives. Most 
energetic in this respect is the commentator Baum- 
stark, who has somewhere spoken of the "rose-red 
romanticism of the sickly sentimental Tacitus," — in 
troth, my captain, bitter words ! And another writer, 
but of a very different school, Lippert, the follower 
of Spencer, tells us that Tacitus, for the sake of the 
moral effect upon his countrymen, makes out of every 
German necessity a German virtue, and so gives us 
a quite false picture of German civilization.^ That 
is no new accusation. The poet Heine speaks of 
hearing E. M. Arndt lecture on the G-ermania, and to 
our satiric young Hebrew the enthusiastic professor 
seemed to " seek in old German forests those virtues 
which he missed in modern drawing-rooms."^ More- 
over, the same Heine, in a less playful mood, com- 
pares the Germania with Madame de Stael's book 
De L'AUemagne^ and thinks the former " a satire on 
Rome." * Are we, then, to regard this study of the 
Germans as partly an idyl and partly a political pam- 
phlet? Is it a Roman "Utopia"? There may be 
some justice in this conclusion. One recent writer 
has based it upon a critical study of the method em- 
ployed by Tacitus, and shows, or tries to show, that 

1 In Kemble's Horse Ferales, pp. 1-35, and especially p. 47. 

2 Religion der europdischen Culturvolker, p. 120. 

3 Heine, "Works," Hoffman und Campe, 1885, Vol. 13, p. 49. 

4 Heine, Die Romantische Schule, "Works," Vol. 7, p. 158. 



22 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

in the arrangement and description of the different 
races of Germany,^ the Roman historian was governed 
mainly by the idea of artistic grouping and picturesque 
effect.2 Much of this claim may be granted. True, 
so great an authority as Waitz insists ^ that Tacifas 
wrote purely as a historian, and not as a moralist. 
But we may concede something to the artist in Taci- 
tus. It is likely enough that he cared more for his 
coloring and contrasts than for the accuracy of his 
line. He paints the Chatti ferocious to a fault, the 
Chauci full of the fruits of peace. But granted that 
he purposely arranges his models, and here or there 
exaggerates their peculiarities, no one can doubt that 
the group as a whole is true to nature. His chief 
sources of information were the works of Sallust, 
Caesar, Livy, and Pliny the Elder, in addition to the 
reports of officers and soldiers who had served in 
Germany. It is hardly likely that Tacitus saw much 
with his own eyes ; but as politician and ofi&ce-holder 
he had many indirect opportunities of studying his 
subject. After the fiercest possible light has beaten 
for centuries upon his work, the author of the G-erma- 
nia is hailed by modern criticism as a keen observer 
and an accurate historian. 

The name " German " has given rise to a great deal 
of discussion. It seems to be of Celtic origin, and 
may mean either "neighbors" or "those who shout 
in battle." Tacitus explains it to be of late origin 

1 Germ. XXVI.-XLIV. 

2 G. Kettner, Die Composition des ethnographischen Teils der Ger- 
m,ania, in Pfeiffer's " Germania," Vol. 19, pp. 257-274. 

3 Verfassnngsgeschichte, 3d ed. I. p. 22. Where we find special 
pleading in Tacitus, it is of a noble sort, like the fine outburst in Cap. 
XXXVII. 



INTRODUCTION 23 

and due to the fact that a tribe, in his day called 
" Tungri," but earlier known as " Germani," crossing 
the Rhine and driving away the Gauls, had brought 
it about that the name of a single tribe was extended 
to all the race.^ It is reasonable enough that a race 
should get its name from abroad. Jacob Grimm 
remarks ^ that names of tribes, like names of human 
beings, are given to them by others : " the need is 
greater to name a third person than to name our- 
selves." Still, the Germans had a sense of relation- 
ship, even if they lacked " solidarity." ^ Long after- 
wards, they called their own tongue " belonging to 
the people," — in Anglo-Saxon, theodisc, as opposed 
to " Welsh," the talk " of the stranger." It was long 
a favorite gibe with Englishmen that the fiends in hell 
spoke this latter language ; and from a passage in the 
Anglo-Saxon Life of St. Guthlac (in prose), down to 
Hotspur's remark : " Now I perceive the devil under- 
stands Welsh," this notion held both in jest and in 
earnest. Dunbar, the Scottish poet, refines the fun 
a little by making even the devil rebel against the 
hideous Gaelic of his followers."^ To this day, Ger- 
mans call Italy " Walschland." The names of the 
different tribes or clans were gentile, sprung from the 
family system.^ 

1 Germ. II., a much disputed passage, but clear in the fact, if not 
in the reason for the fact. The best recent summary of criticism is by 
Miillenhoff, Deutsche Alter thumskunde, II. 198 f. See also Baum- 
stark, Germania, 100 if. 

2 GescJiichte d. devtschen Sprache (henceforth G. D. S.), p. 108. 

3 A fine defence of it in Grimm's G. D. S. p. 792. 

4 See his famous Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, in Schipper's 
beautiful edition, now appearing in Vienna, Part II. p. 133, and note. 

5 Stubbs, Const. Hist. England, I. 38. Compare further Birming- 
ham, Walsingham, etc., also the names of tribes in the Widsi^ Lay. 



24 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

How much territory the Germans occupied in the 
first century of our era is stated with sufficient clear- 
ness by Tacitus. '^ Germany as a whole," — that is, 
Greater Germany, east of the Rhine, not the Gallic 
provinces called Germania, — " is sundered from 
Gaul, Rhsetia, and Pannonia by the rivers Rhine and 
Danube, from Sarmatia and Dacia by mutual fear 
or by the mountains : the rest is bounded by Ocean, 
which flows around broad peninsulas and huge 
islands." ^ In this description it suited the political 
purposes of Tacitus, so conjectures Miillenhoff,^ to 
leave Germany practically unlimited in at least one 
direction ; else the Vistula would have been given as 
a boundary. Moreover, for artistic reasons it may 
be, Noricum is also omitted from the contiguous 
countries. Still, the general facts are clear enough. 

Within the territory named, Tacitus informs us, 
the population of Germany may be divided into three 
groups : the Ingsevones (or Ingvseones) who lived 
nearest the ocean ; the middle race of Herminones ; 
and in the south the Istsevones (or Istvseones). 
Pliny adds another group, the Hilleviones ; these 
Zeuss assigns to Scandinavia.^ The fact that these 
three continental tribes have names which are bound 
together by rhyme — so-called " alliteration " — in the 
well known Germanic fashion,* makes their genuine 
character extremely probable. The traditions which 
held together each of these groups were probably of 

1 He seems to think North Germany full of islands, and long after 
his time Scandinavia itself passed for the greatest of them. 

2 D. A. 11. 3 f. 

3 Germ. II. ; Zeuss, Die Deutschen u. die Nachharstdmme, p. 77. 

4 Hengist and Horsa; Heorogar, HroSgar, and Halga in B^oioulf ; 
Gunther, Giselher, and Gemot in the Nihelungen Lay, and others. 



INTRODUCTION 25 

a religious nature, and were retained in a common 
cult.^ The Ingsevones, our own ancestors, held 
Ingvas as father and founder of our race ; and we 
find Ing mentioned, seemingly as a god, in the Anglo- 
Saxon Rune-Lay. Ermanas and Istvas were similarly 
the founders of their respective clans. The three 
names, if we may follow Miillenhoff's interpretation,^ 
mean "He who is come," "The exalted one," "He 
who is desired and honored." In ancient song, says 
Tacitus, our forefathers record (^celebrant) these three 
as sons of Mannus, the original man, himself son of 
Tuisto, whom Tacitus calls " a god born of the earth," 
deum terra editum. In this way the clans about the 
North Sea and along the Cimbrian peninsula, though 
hardly a united political body, felt a close tie of kin- 
ship. It was emphatically a sea-loving race, — Fris- 
ians, Angles, Jutes, Saxons : these are our forefathers, 
together, it is probable, with a few of the Danes. 
It is significant enough that Saxons, Danes, and Nor- 
mans made the three conquests of Britain. 

Let us glance a moment at the separate tribes of 
these three groups. In the first and second centuries 
after Christ,^ the Saxons were settled on the right 
bank of the Elbe opposite the Chauci, with Reudigni 
and Anglii north of them and running well up into 
the peninsula. Southeast of the Saxons and east of 
the Langobardi were the Suevi-Semnones. Scandi- 
navia was already settled by Germanic tribes. The 
Goths were still on the right bank of the Vistula, 

1 Waitz, Verfassungsges. 1. 15, thinks the division was based on lin- 
guistic differences. 

2 Havpt's Zeitschrift fiir deutsches AUerthum, 23. 1 ff. 

3 See maps I. and II. at the end of Miillenhoff's D. A. II. ; also 
Kiepert, Alte Geographic, p. 537 ff. 



26 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

with Slavonic and other neighbors on the east and 
northeast. Such was the situation in the earliest cen- 
turies of our era. Then came the great movement 
of the tribes, which changed completely the positions 
of many German nations ; but Frisians, Angles, and 
Saxons held their ground. The latter had long been 
known as desperate pirates, — in fact, as early as the 
second century. They gave the name to that " Saxon 
Shore " of Britain, and made necessary the appoint- 
ment of a Comes Litoris Saxonici per Britanniam, one 
of the most important officials of the empire, with his 
"nine strong castles dotted along the coast from 
Yarmouth to Shoreham." ^ These Saxon pirates, 
with their Frisian and Anglian neighbors, clung to 
the coast, while the Goths were wandering from 
the mouth of the Vistula to the shores of the Black 
Sea, or while the Lombards made their slow way 
to Italy .^ The sea-myths of the latter tribe were 
changed to suit an inland life ; what was once an 
ocean legend was forced to adapt itself to the tamer 
scene of a river.^ As our forefathers had been, so 
they remained ; and it was no new path they sought, 
when, about the time that Attila was crushed upon 
the Catalaunian plains, these heathen Germans were 
" driving their foaming keels " over the North Sea 
towards the coast of Britain, no longer pirates, but 
invaders, conquerors, settlers. Nor need we assume 

1 Hodgkin, Italy, I. 228. 

2 Possibly the three families of Ingsevones, Herminones, and Istsevo- 
nes failed to keep strict lines in this general movement. Possibly some 
of the later groups, like Franks or Thuringians, may have been formed 
from two of these divisions. See Arnold, Deutsche Urzeit, p. 125. 

3 The story of Lamissio, Paulus Diac. 1. 15, and Mtillenhoff , Beovulf, 
10 f. 



INTRODUCTION 27 

any pressure from enemies at home, the Danes for 
example, as sending our forefathers into exile .^ They 
were men of their hands, and had that love for fight 
and adventure, that habit of seeking war afar if they 
could not find it at their doors, which Tacitus records 
of the Germans at large. Indeed, the Ingsevonic race 
is early known in history. The Romans had no more 
dangerous foes and no more valued allies than the 
men of this same strain. Thus the Frisians, to whom 
we are closely related, are first mentioned during the 
campaigns of Drusus ; with the Batavians, they dwelt 
on the northwestern coast of Europe, near the mouth 
of the Rhine. 2 They threw off the Roman yoke and 
were free and unmolested until the year 47 A. d. 
Again they fought, and were enrolled against Rome 
in the revolt headed by Civilis. 

The large and powerful tribe of the Chauci were 
also first known through the expedition of Drusus.^ 
They lived on both sides of the Weser, where they 
were seen by the elder Pliny ; they stretched over a 
large territory which, says Tacitus, ''they not only 
hold, but fill (implent)y Huge of stature, bold of 
heart, sound in morals, they are praised extravagantly 
by Tacitus* as "the noblest race of the Germans"; 
they are self-contained, dignified, justice-loving, mo- 
lesting no one, always maintaining honorable peace, 
but ready to rise in arms upon provocation, horse 
and foot in multitudes.^ Pliny, however, Pliny the 

1 Miillenhoff, JSfordalbingische StucUen, 1. 125. 

2 Zeuss, 136 ff. ; Tacitus," A^m. IV. 72, 79. 

3 Zeuss, p. 139. Moller, das altenglische Volksepos, p. 86, thinks 
that Chauci settled in Kent and Northumbria, and so play a decided 
part in our ancestral liistory. 

* Germ. XXXV. 5 Vellejus confirms Tacitus; see Zeuss, p. 140. 



28 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

eye-witness, seems to have received a very different 
impression. In his Natural History,^ he tells us that 
he saw them in their desolate swamps where ocean 
claimed almost as much right as the earth itself, 
forcing the miserable inhabitants to seek such high 
places as can save them from the tide. '' There a 
wretched race of men must seek refuge on the hil- 
locks or in dwellings laboriously raised above the 
highest known tides. When the water covers their 
neighborhood (at high tide), they are like sailors ; 
when it recedes, they are like shipwrecked folk. The 
fish going out with the tide are caught close by the 
huts. These people have no herds as their neighbors 
have, and do not live on milk ; nor do they hunt wild 
beasts. For fish-nets they braid ropes of sedge and 
swamp-grass. For fuel they use peat. . . . They 
have no drink save rain-water caught in a trench 
about the houses." Then Pliny adds his rhetoric 
and his compliment. "Enamoured of their barba- 
rism," he exclaims, " these men actually declare that 
if they were to be conquered to-day by the Roman 
people, they would call it slavery ! " But evidently, 
as, Zeuss points out, Pliny is here, quite as much as 
Tacitus, the seeker after rhetorical and artistic effect. 
One wishes to emphasize the virtues of the people ; 
the other is bent upon a completely dreary picture of 
the land and the climate. 

The Saxons, whom we must not too quickly con- 
fuse with the great nation which Charlemagne so for- 
cibly converted to Christianity in the ninth century, 
are first named by the geographer Ptolemy .^ He 
means the separate tribe which afterwards helped so 

1 XYI. 1. 2 Zeuss, p. 150. 



INTRODUCTION 29 

much to conquer and settle England. They were 
not only pirates; a land-expedition which they sent 
against the Roman province provoked the descrip- 
tion of them as "a race who live in the trackless 
coastlands and swamps of ocean, and are terrible for 
bravery and agility." They v^ere seated at the foot of 
the peninsula and by the mouth of the Elbe. Next 
to them were the Anglians ; the traditions of this 
old home held long in England, and there seems no 
good reason to doubt the truth of Beda's statements.^ 
The Anglians lived in what is now Schleswig.^ The 
Jutes lived in modern Jutland and must have been 
close neighbors of the Danes. 

We have laid more stress upon the Ingsevonic 
tribes because they were beyond question the 
founders of our so-called Anglo-Saxon race. In 
the middle parts of Germany, however, were the 
Herminones, Suevi, Hermunduri, Chatti, and Che- 
rusci: out of these tribes, not without mixings and 
shif tings, emerge the later Thuringians and Franks.^ 
Other minor divisions are given by Pliny and Tacitus. 
It should be mentioned that philologists have divided 
the Germanic race into two broad groups, — the East- 
Germanic and the West-Germanic. The former in- 
cludes Scandinavian and Gothic ; the latter. High 
German and Low German, — Low German naturally 
covering the Ingsevonic tribes. 

1 References in Zeuss, p. 495 ff. 2 Miillenhoff, Beovulf, p. 59. 

3 Waitz ( Verfs. I. 14) says the Franks were Istsevones ; Simrock 
says Ingsevones ; Zeuss (p. 80) as in our text. 



30 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



CHAPTER II 
LAND AND PEOPLE — 

The German in Germany — His former home — Inherited and 
actual culture — Country and climate — Pastures, flocks, and 
herds — Nomad or farmer ? — Boundaries. 

In a district bounded by the Elbe and the Oder, 
north of the mountain ranges, and protected by the 
vast forest of Southern Germany, Germans had grown 
into a peculiar race, a gens tantum sui similis.^ But 
it is improbable that they Avere original inhabitants 
of the land. Their forefathers must have broken, 
centuries before the time of Tacitus,^ from that mys- 
terious East which has sent out Avave after wave of 
western conquest ; and must have driven away, or 
possibly enslaved, the primitive tribes which held the 
land. No legends, no dim traditions even, seem to 
have survived from this remote epoch to tell the story 
of the conquest or keep memorial of an older home.^ 
Dahn, indeed, suggests that some vague recollection 
of conquest may lurk in those legends of a dwarfish 
folk which fled from men and sought refuge in the 

1 Germ. IV. ; Mullenhoff , D. A. V. 1. 

2 Miillenhoff is inclined to place this date as early as the entry of 
Greeks and Italians upon their respective peninsulas. 

3 " Ohne Zweifel hielten sie sich f Lir Autochthouen." Miillenhoff, 
Schmidt's Allgem. Zeitschr.fiir Geschichte, VIII. 216. 



f 



LAND AND PEOPLE 31 

crevices of rock and field and moor, — in other words, 
an indigenous race, smaller and darker than the Ger- 

*mans.^ Grimm is more poetical than clear when he 
speaks of rumors, still faintly pulsing Qnachziicken') 
among all Germanic races, of primitive emigration 
out of Asia, rumors that connect themselves with 
the legends of Alexander, of Priam and ^neas, 
and furnish to mediaeval tradition the origins of 
British tribes.^ But this is extremely uncertain. 
The tribes wdiich our forefathers drove before them 
may have been such as the Finns, a hunting folk low 
enough in the scale of civilization, who " had neither 
wool, salt, nor wagons with wheels, and could not 
count to one hundred." ^ 

Where the Germans parted from their Aryan kins- 
men ; where, moreover, all the Aryan race once 
dwelt, and whence the various families set out, — 
these are questions which bid fair to be long dis- 
cussed and ver}^ late decided. The general assump- 
tion has pointed to Asiatic origin and a mainly 

^^^^^^1'^ course of Aryan conquest; but against 

Kuch a view decided protest was made some time ago 
by Dr. Latham and Benfey, and lately by Canon 

' Isaac Taylor and Professor Sayce.* As rivals to the 

1 Bausteine, I. 285. ^ G.D. S. 520. 3 Hehn, p. 18. 

4 The isolated German attacks of Penka and others hecame a gen- 
eral advance at the meeting of the British Association in 1887. In 
addition to the philological arguments, Huxley has thrown the weight 
of biological research into the scale for a European origin of the 
Aryans. (See JSfineteenth Century for November, 1890: "The Aryan 
Question and Prehistoric Man.") His arguments arrive at much the 
same conclusion (see p. 766) as that reached by Dr. Latham. The best 
book on the subject is Dr. Otto Schrader's Sprachvergleichung und 
Urc/eschichte, now accessible in an English translation by F. B. Jevons, 
1890. Dr. Schrader collects the material and gives a fair summary of 
the arguments advanced in opposition to the old belief. 



32 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

old table-lands of Asia, may be mentioned the coun- 
try north of the Black Sea, modern Germany itself, 
and Scandinavia. Indeed (limiting the question to 
our own race), in the older generation of Germanists 
there were men like P. A. Munch, the historian of 
Norway, and Wilhelm Wackernagel, who believed 
that our ancestors came out of Scandinavia down 
upon the continent and drove the Celts before 
them. 

A candid critic is forced to admit that the whole 
question hangs in the air, belongs to a time quite 
beyond the reach of investigation, and probably will 
never be settled. If there is any drift of argument 
to decide the matter after we have looked at such 
results as Hehn has given us, it is in favor of Asia.^ 

Easier to answer is the question of inherited cul- 
ture, brought by the Germans from their earliest 
home. The absurd practice long prevailed of col- 
lecting all facts of culture which could be found in 
older Sanskrit literature, applying these first to the 
primitive Aryans, and then, by easy implication, forc- 
ing them bodily upon the earl}^ Germans. Victor 
Hehn has done something to check these unbridled 
imaginings, and he is sustained by such an emi- 
nent philological authority as Professor Johannes 

1 A vivid and plausible sketch of the Aryan invasion of Europe is 
given by Hehn in his monograph, Das Salz, p. 21 f. Referring to the 
argument for an Asiatic origin which is based on the character of 
domesticated animals and cultivated plants, Huxley, in the article 
quoted above, says (p. 768) : " But even that argument does not neces- 
sarily take us beyond the limit of southeastern Europe ; and it needs 
reconsideration in view of the changes of physical geography and of 
climate." For our own purposes in the following pages, which haye 
nothing to do with origins of the Aryan race, Hehn's conclusions have 
abiding value. 



i 

i 



LAND AND PEOPLE 33 

Schmidt.^ In the first place let us take the primitive 
Aryans, the parent stock of our race. What culture 
had they as common dower for all the members of 
the family, as one after another left the early home? 
Conservative inference from the facts of philology 
assures us that the primitive Aryan was on a higher 
plane of civilization than the North American Indian. 
The Aryan was no longer a mere hunter ; he knew 
horses and cattle, though the latter were used mainly 
for the yoke. The dog was already domesticated; 
but, oddly enough, the cat, most domestic of animals, 
was not known to the household until modern times.^ 
The Aryan plucked — not sheared — the wool of 
sheep and braided from it a sort of felt; for he did 
not as yet know how to weave. He knew the use of 
barley, but had little or no regular agriculture ; for 
the use of wild grains can be assumed where there is 
no attempt to plant and cultivate. Flesh was eateu, 
though probably the Aryan had no salt.^ Milk was 
a favorite, and butter ; while out of honey was made 
a fermented liquor, — mead. Houses, wagons, boats, 
and swords were common. The state was organized 
on the basis of the kin, and there were some begin- 
nings of a legal system. The decimal system had 
been invented for counting, and time was reckoned 
by the moon, ''the measurer"; hence the habit of 

1 In his lectures on Comparative Philology, as well as in his special 
works. See also Hehn, Culturpflanzen, p. 14 ff. 

2 Hehn, p. 374. Against an assertion that the Romans did not have 
the domesticated cat, see Thomas Wright, Womankind in Western 
Europe, p. 18. 

3 Races still without use of salt are mentioned by Hehn, Das Salz, 
p. 16. Hehn thinks the Aryans first found salt in the neighborhood of 
the Caspian Sea. 



34 GERMAXIC ORIGINS 

our ancestors to count by nights (as in " fortnight ") 
rather than by days. 

Above this stage of culture we need not fancy the 
Germans of Tacitus very far advanced; nor, on the 
other hand, must we picture them below it. Philol- 
ogy insists that the words brought from a common 
Aryan vocabulary represent things and thoughts 
brought from a common Aryan life. ^ Moreover, it is 
well worth noting that the conclusions of archaeolo- 
gists, especially those of the north, make Scandinavia 
emerge from the stone age about 1500 B.C. ; place the 
bronze age, with considerable culture evinced by its 
relics, from that date until 500 B.C. ; and from this 
point date the iron age. For the time of Tacitus, 
therefore, savagery cannot be assumed of the Ger- 
manic races, unless we believe that some great revolu- 
tion or invasion, some social cataclysm which washed 
away one race and floated in another, made a breach 
with the past. It might be alleged to suit this the- 
ory that graves of the later bronze age do not contain 
so many or so fine objects as the earlier burial-places, 
and rarely have weapons in them.^ But the burning 
of bodies, which came in about this time in place of 
the older and simpler burial, may account for the 
change; and, again, we have the hard facts of phil- 
ology. Montelius says that Southern Scandinavia 
three thousand years ago had a civilization like that 
described in the Homeric poems. 

In the time of Caesar and Tacitus, Germany was 
covered with dense forests. Pomponius Mela, who, 

1 Montelius, Civilization of Sweden in Heathen Times, transl. 
Woods, p. 86. Some recent authorities put an age of copper between 
stone and bronze. 



LAND AND PEOPLE 35 

in the reign of Claudius, wrote a sort of geography, 
tells us that the land \Yas crossed by many rivers, 
rough with many mountains, and for the most part 
impassable because of woods and swamps.^ Swamp 
and forest, while they held back German culture, 
made mightily for German independence. Without 
these vast and dangerous reaches of woodland and 
morass, the military skill of Drusus would doubtless 
have conquered Germany as the genius of Csesar con- 
quered Gaul ; for Gaul had been no wilderness, and 
in some branches of agriculture had given lessons to 
the farmers and gardeners of Rome. But Germany 
was one vast forest, broken by swamp or meadow, 
with here and there a stretch of open land : nothing 
about it was likely to attract an Italian. " Who," 
cries Tacitus, " would leave Asia or Africa or Italy 
to come to Germany, with its desert aspect, its harsh 
climate, its lack of cultivation, — a dreary world ! " 
The German swamps are often mentioned, and 
abounded particularly in the north ; what difficul- 
ties they made for the Roman soldier may be read 
in the nervous Latin of Tacitus.^ Quicksands were 
plentiful enough. Jordanes, the historian of the 
Goths, tells, in his fourth chapter, a legend of the 
early wanderings of his race. They had come to 
Scythia,^ drawn by fruitful soil ; and as they were 
crossing a bridge it broke, and numbers of them 
perished, not only in the stream but in the tremuUs 
paludibus on both sides. With a touch evidently 
taken from old song about the tragedy, Jordanes 
adds that even in his time voices of cattle could be 

1 Pomp. Mela, de situ Orbis, III. 3. 2 For example, Ann. I. 63. 
3 Probably we are to think of Lithuania as the scene. 



36 GERMAXIC ORIGINS 

heard there, and forms of human beings could be 
seen. How swamp and fen and moor must have 
abounded in the low country northwards by the sea, 
the land of our Ingsevonic forefathers ! In their 
myths we find many allusions to these moors. The 
coast-line of northwestern Europe has changed since 
those days ; where now is firm land was then a maze 
of islands, inlets, and marshes.^ The epic of Beotvulf 
deals largely with a demon of swamp and seaside ; 
and even if, with Uhland and Laistner, we regard 
this monster as a fog-demon, he rises from the waters. 
Ingeevonic poetry seldom wanders far from the scent 
of brine and dash of waves. 

The winters were keen and long. True, the " harsh 
climate " of Tacitus would be echoed by a modern 
Italian ; but swamp and forest of that day made the 
w^inter far more severe than it is noAv : there was 
more ice and snow, more fog and rain. Like land, 
like people. The genius of Germanic poetry is tragic, 
and is fain to sing the fall of empire, such as the 
ruin of the Burgundian house, or the collapse of 
Theodoric's great kingdom. But back of the tragedy 
lies the melancholy temperament, and back of this 
the gloomy world in which our forefathers dwelt. 
Their song echoes to a homelier note of sorrow, — to 
hunger and cold, howd of wolf, grinding of ice, exile ' 
and misery of friendless men, bitter toil on a wintry 
ocean ; such is the shadow to which a fierceness of 
delight in battle and slaughter makes the only con- 
trast. So far as Germanic fancy pictured an under- 
world of sorrow and gloom, — not, of course, of pain 

1 Miillenhoff, Nordal'bingische Studien, I. p. 117 : " Die deutschen 
Volker an Nord- imd Ostsee in altester Zeit." 



LAND AXD PEOPLE 37 

or of punishment, — it was a world of cold and 
cheerless waters : a " water-hell," men have named 
it. In the Old English ballad of Thomas the Rymer, 
or Thomas of Ercildoune, we hear of these chill and 
gloomy waters. Thomas is led away to Elfin Land 
by the Elfin Lady : — 

Scho ledde him in at Eldoiiehill 

Undiruethe a deriie lee, 
Whave it was dirke als myduyght m^a-ke 

And ever loater till his knee. 

The montenans of dayes three 

He herd hot sicogliynge of ilie fiode ; 
At the laste, — etc?- 

Scandinavian poetry would yield us a plenty of 
similar examples. 

These swamps, these vast and sullen forests, made 
the German of fitful and passionate temper, savage, 
inclined to gloom or to unchecked revelry. The 
furor Teutonicus was no fiction. Yet the German 
loved his forest; and trees are everywhere near to 
his heart.^ The grove was his temple, with dark and 
horrid rites that suited the scene ; the dead were 
often buried under trees, as in old Hebrew days 
when Rebecca's nurse, Deborah, is said to have been 
buried under an oak, afterwards called " the oak of 
weeping " ; ^ and the boundaries of estate or mark 
were designated by some tree, as oak, ash, beech, 
thorn, elder, lime, and birch.* These sacred trees 
long continued to be a source of anxiety to the 

1 Thomas of Ercildoune, ed. Brandl, p. 83 f. 

2 See Mannhardt, Baumkultus der Germanen, which brings together 
a great mass of material. 

3 Genesis xxxv. 8. * Kemble, Saxons in England, I. 52. 



38 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

authorities of the church, and one was cut down by 
the apostle of Germany, St. Boniface. Under a tree 
was held the old Folk-Moot, the primitive court and 
local assembly ; ^ and the Westphalian descendant of 
these older courts, the famous Vehmgericht, not only 
held its sessions under such a sacred shadow, but 
hanged the victims of its process " on the nearest 
convenient tree," after the manner of early Germanic 
executions.^ The peasant still loves to plant trees 
about his home, and in olden days the tree itself was 
centre and prop of the house ; even in our prosaic 
America,^ one can often tell from far away where 
the different farm-houses stand, simply by the groups 
of tall pine trees that cluster about each home. Of 
the German forests, however, we find here and there 
such a picturesque periphrase as " where the squirrel 
leaps for miles from tree to tree."* The oak tree 
was the dearest; and it has held its royalty. It 
gave acorns to the swine ; and where game was 
scarce and other food exhausted, the same humble 
fruit kept life in man himself. Later times in- 
quire carefully about the ownership of acorns which 
drop into a neighbor's ground.^ Next to the oak 
stood the beech, and these two are " noble " trees ; ^ 
although the ash often took high rank in Anglo- 
Saxon days. The ballads preserve traditions of 
their sanctity. ^ 

1 G. L. Gomme, Primitive Folk-Moots, passim. 

2 " Proditores et transfugas arboribus suspend unt. ..." Tac. Germ. 
XII. 

3 Especially in New Jersey. 

4 J. Grimm, Rechtsalterthiimer (henceforth, R. A.), p. 497. 

5 J. Grimm, R. ^.550. 

e R. A. 50G; Mijtholocjie,^ p. 540 ff. 



LAND AND PEOPLE 39 

Glasgerryon swore a full great othe, 

By oake and ashe and thorne : 
" Lady I was never in your chamber 

Sith the time that I was borne." ^ 

Punishments for injuring trees were inconceivably 
harsh ; and beheading is among the milder penalties.^ 
Fallen into disuse in historic times, — we find no 
examples recorded of the worse punishments, — these 
old laws were, nevertheless, once part and parcel of 
the system and were doubtless rigidly enforced. 

Inhabitants of such a land must have been more 
nomadic than agricultural ; but, although marsh and 
forest predominated, Germany was not without fer- 
tile fields and a rude system of farming. We read 
in Tacitus of good farming land offered as an induce- 
ment for German tribes to make peace with Rome. 
The proportion of cultivated fields to pasture and 
woodland might perhaps serve as a test of civiliza- 
tion ; and Arnold calls the German now a " nomad- 
farmer," now a " farmer-nomad." Again, the bronze 
sickles and the hand-mills found in graves show that 
tillage was known in Sweden previous to the fifth 
century before Christ.^ Csesar, to be sure, discovered 
very little which testified of agriculture among the 
Germans ; but Tacitus mentions it in more favorable 
terms. The increase of population acts on a nomadic 
race as a stimulus to further wanderings ; but when 
Roman barriers threw the Germans back upon them- 
selves, there was natural demand for some steadier 
supply of food, and they learned to till the soil. The 
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, once settled in the fertile 

1 Child, Ballads,2 III. 138 : Glasgerion, stanza 18. 2 ji, a. 518 ff. 
•3 Montelius, work quoted, p. 71. See also Waltz, Ver/assungsges. 
1. 16. 



40 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

fields of Britain, became as outright farmers as were 
ever seen. Nevertheless, nomadic instincts were very 
strong with the German, and, on the Continent at 
least, he put his chief trust in flocks and herds. The 
German pastures were famous. Among the Ingsevonic 
tribes especially, swine must have been raised in great 
numbers, and, though of an inferior breed, doubtless 
were a prime source of food.^ The horse was raised 
or hunted, not for modern reasons, nor yet for the 
milk of the mares,^ but for its flesh. Like the oak, 
horses had a sacred association, and were among the 
noblest offerings that could be rendered to the gods. 
White horses were used for divination,^ and the color 
still remains a mark of royal ownership. Modern 
anthropology is inclined to associate the prominence 
of the horse for sacrifice with its prominence as an 
article of food.* Certainly the eating of horse flesh 
at feasts and celebrations was a practice which the 
church in Germany opposed as strenuously as pos- 
sible, and drove out only after a long and hard strug- 
gle. About the year 732, Gregory, wisest and best 
of popes, wrote as follows to Boniface in Germany: 
" Thou hast allowed a few to eat the flesh of wild 
horses, and many to eat the flesh of tame ones. From 
now on, holy brother, permit this on no account." 
Perhaps, hints Hehn,^ the apostle of the Germans 

^ Tacitus does not mention them. See Hehn, p. 16; Waltz, I. 36. 

2 " Das melken der Stuten ist bei reinen Germauen nie Branch 
gewesen." Hehn, p. 45. 

3 Tac. Germ. X. : " candidi et nullo mortal! opere contact!." 

4 Lippert, Culturgeschichte, 1. 160. 

s Culturpfl. p. 22. The church also forbade the eating of storks, 
beavers, and hares. Caesar says, in Britain leporetn et gallinam et 
anserem gustare non fas 2Ji-(tant — sign of sacred associations. Hehn, 
p. 272. 



LAND AND PEOPLE 41 

had been thus liberal because the custom was known 
to him in his native England, while it seemed but 
abomination to the Italian. The horse was cared for 
in droves and was watched by herdsmen. In the Old 
Saxon Heliand^ a paraphrase of the gospels made 
early in the ninth century, the " shepherds " of the 
original become in Germanic rendering ehuskalkSs, 
horse-servants, who were not watching their flocks 
by night, but rather were guarding their horses.^ 
Down to the year 1000, horse flesh was eaten in 
Germany ; and in Poland horses were objects of the 
chase as late as the seventeenth century. It must be 
noted, however, that certain rock-pictures of the 
Scandinavian bronze age show the horse in regular 
cavalry combats ; and it was doubtless used for rid- 
ing, not hauling, in the earliest Germanic times. 

Cattle came later than horses, and at first were 
used mainly for the yoke. As with the horses, which 
were neither fleet nor handsome, and with sheep, 
Tacitus notes in German cattle an inferior breed ; 
and he points out the lack of that gloria frontis^ the 
stately horns of an Italian herd. A German com- 
mentator on Tacitus murmurs in a note that the 
short-horns probably gave much better milk ! In 
the year 225 of our era enormous herds of cattle 
are reported as covering Germany. It is a charac- 
teristic trait of nomadic times that cattle might be 
honorably stolen from a neighboring tribe, provided 
it was done openly, — just as wood might be cut and 
hauled away if the act was accompanied by noise and 
shouting. The mortality of cattle in those days must 

1 Pointed out by Vilmar in his excellent little work, Deutsche 
Altertiimer im Heliand. 



42 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

have been enormous : with all modern resources, a 
severe winter kills thousands upon our western plains, 
and it was infinitely worse with the Germans. 

As in the case of oak tree and of horse, cattle, 
which entered so closely into the life of the Germans, 
were connected with sacrifice and rites of worship. 
Kemble ^ sees signs of a cult of this sort in the fact 
that bones of oxen and cows, as well as of horses, 
have been found in divers Germanic graves. He also 
notices the cows which drew the wagon of Nerthus, 
chief goddess of the Ingaevonic race, and the oxen 
yoked to the chariot of the Merovingian kings. 
Cattle were of course supremely important to the 
nomadic Aryan. One thinks of the great part played 
by the cow in Sanskrit literature, of the heavenly 
cattle, more or less frequent in all Aryan mythology, 
and of the customs which we can easily revive for 
our imagination from such fossils as the Latin " pecu- 
nia " or the English "fee." The clouds, those fasci- 
nating objects for early myth-makers and modern 
myth-mongers, are represented as horses, ships, swans, 
— but most of all as cows, which are milked by In- 
dra or our own Thunar.^ There was a " holy cow, 
first-born of all things," in Hindu myths ; and the cow 
remained, for the whole race, chief synonym of good. 
In Scandinavian cosmogony, a cow appears on the 
scene at the earliest possible moment ; and we even 
hear of a certain Swedish king who was wont to take 
a cow with him into battle. Good reason for all this. 
Alive, cattle gave milk and drew loads ; dead, they 
were useful in many ways, — flesh for food, skin for 

1 Horx Ferales, p. 68. 

2 So interprets Mannhardt, Germanische Mythen, p. 1 ff. and p. 37, n. 



LAND AND PEOPLE 43 

clothing, sinews for bowstrings, horns for cups, bone 
for needles and tools.^ Even to-day, proverbial wis- 
dom insists that there is " nothing like leather," and 
leather is palpably a weaker avatar of the holy cow 
herself. 

Fowls and bees are not unknown to nomadic life ; 
and they were common with our forefathers. Of 
fowls we meet geese, ducks, and chickens. Pliny 
tells of the famous German goose-feathers, highly 
valued for bed-coverings in Rome, and fetching enor- 
mous prices ; though we are reminded that such use 
of feathers for stuffing cushions and pillows was not 
originally Roman, but borrowed from Gaul and Ger- 
many.^ Geese were even kept as pets, and we have 
a case recorded where they sympathize audibly with 
the grief of their mistress : — 

Lamented Gudrun, Giuki's daughter,' 
so that tears flowed ... 
clamor'd answer geese in courtyard, 
beautiful fowls the fair one owned.^ 

As for the bee, its industry did something more 
than point a moral for our ancestors and provide an 
occasional luxury. It furnished them with fermented 
liquor ; while honey itself was prized far beyond any 
standard of modern times. This is true of nearly all 
nomadic races, and at first concerns only the wild 
honey ; later there sprang up a regular bee-culture. 
In Slavonic lands, we can trace for a long while the 
custom of paying taxes and tribute in honey ; in Ice- 
land, wax was used for the same purpose.^ The old 

1 Hehn, p. 14. 2 Hehu, p. 302. 

3 Edda, ed. Hildebrand, Gu"Srunarkvi^^a, 1. 16. 

4 Weinhold, Altnordisches Leben, p. 89. 



44 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

laws were very strict and minute in their treatment 
of property in bees, particularly the right to mark 
and keep a tree in which the insects have taken quar- 
ters, — evidently nomadic jurisprudence : ^ a fine 
was imposed on him who took the bees from such a 
marked tree, " de arbore signato in silva alterius apes 
tulerit." If the tree had no mark, no fine could be 
levied.^ In the Anglo-Saxon " Rectitudines Singula- 
rum Personarum," we find the functions of the bee- 
churl, heo-ceorl, clearly defined ; among others, he is 
to pay so much tax in honey.^ He is evidently an 
important personage, and much in demand. In thati 
priceless account of the voyages of Ohthere and 
Wulfstan Avhich English King Alfred added to his 
translation of the History of the World, by Orosius, 
we have Wulfstan's description of the Esthonians (z.e. 
the Old Prussians) as follows : " And there is very 
much honey and fishing ; and the king and the rich- 
est men drink mares' milk (the fermented liquor) ; 
poor folk and slaves drink mead. . . . And there is 
no ale brewed among the Esthonians, but there is 
mead a plenty." Alfred's own people used honey in 
all cases where later times employ sugar.* The older 
Anglo-Saxons drank mead galore ; their chief build- 
ing was the " mead-hall." Indeed, as late as the reign 
of William the Conqueror, a very large proportion of 
the products of the country, as shown by Domesday 

1 Grimm, i?. A. 596 ff. Agricultural races, of course, raise barley 
and hops, and soon turn to beer-brewing. 

2 Homeyer, Hans und Hofmarken, p. 10. 

3 Schmid, Gesetze der Angelsacsehn, p. 376. Moreover, we have the 
"bee-thief." In Alfred's laws (Schmid, p. 76) three special thieves are 
named, — of gold, of horses, and of bees. 

4 Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcitnninr/, and Starcraft, II. p. ix. 



LAND AND PEOPLE 45 

Book, consisted in honey, used chiefly for the making 
of mead.i There is a question in the Demaundes 
Joyous, printed after the French by Wynkyn de 
Worde in 1511, and quoted by Kemble in his Sala- 
mon and Saturnus : ^ " Whiche is the moost profyta- 
ble beest and that man eteth leest of? — This is bees." 
Finally, bees passed into religion and superstition. 
He that kills a bee is the devil's own. Bees speak 
to one another, and understand what is said to them.^ 
We "tell the bees" of a house-owner's death; and in 
old times people added a humble request that the 
bees would kindly remain with their new master. In 
Westphalia, they sing on such an occasion : — 

Ime, din har es dot, 
verlatt mi nit in miner not ! 

Bee, thy lord is dead : 
forsake me not in my need ! 

When the bride was led to her new house, a similar 
rite was performed : — 

Lnen in, imen ut, 

hir es de junge brat ; 

imen iim, imen an, 

hir es de junge mann : 

imekes, verlatt se nit 

wenn se nu mal kinner kritt ! 

That is, " Here is the bride and here is the groom ; 
good bees, don't leave them when the children come." 
One of our old bits of English poetry is a charm to 
prevent bees from deserting their home.* They are 

1 T. Wright, Domestic Manners, etc., p. 91. 2 p. 287. 
3 Wuttke, Deutscher Aberglaube, p. 100. 
^ Grein, Bibl. d. cigs. Poesie,^ I. 319 f. 



46 GERMAXIC ORIGIXS 

called sigetvif, a name of the Valkyrias, "victory- 
women," and are evidently not far from active myth. 
Like the cow, honey is a precious thing among the 
Germanic (or at least, the Scandinavian) gods. It 
is the main ingredient of their drink; it is connected 
with the origin of poetry, their gift to men; and 
Grimm reminds us that, in like manner, Grecian 
fable made bees carry to Pindar — ^ or any other con- 
venient poet — the divine gift of song.^ 

All these things point very strongly to a nomadic 
existence ; but there was, nevertheless, a certain 
amount of farming practised even by the Germans 
known to Caesar and Tacitus. We need not in our 
haste hand them over to barbarism or savagery .^ 
Guizot, in his Histoire de la Civilisation de la France^ 
assumes that our forefathers were savages outright, 
and he prints along with the Grermania parallel pas- 
sages describing American Indians and other equally 
barbarous races. ^ Aside from positive evidence to 
the contrary, we may reasonably object to this view, 
as confounding what the Germans call JJncultur and 
Vorcultur. The former is the state of tribes which 
never come to anything better than a raw clanship 
and remain mere hordes ; the latter is the note of 
those races which are passing through the clan-stage 
to higher forms of national life.^ The Germans of 
Tacitus are a developing, ardent, ambitious race, 
destined soon to become a dominant race. r^They 
undoubtedly had more or less agriculture ; and this 

1 Deutsche Mythologies (henceforth, D. M.), p. 579. 

2 A. Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion, 1. 222, calls the society of the 
Germans of Tacitus "a higher barbarism,'' like that of the Scythians 
of Herodotus. 

8 See Waitz, I, 32. •» Dahn, Bausteine, II. 77. 



LAND AND PEOPLE 47 

is perhaps the best standard of civilization, seeing 
that it marks definite advances from the merely 
nomadic stateX Agriculture among the earliest 
Germans has left ample proof at least of the begin- 
nings of its existence. In the first place, we have 
Caesar's account, derived from his contact with a 
warlike and aggressive tribe. He says the Germans 
do not care much for farming, since they depend for 
food mainly upon milk, cheese, and flesh of animals.^ 
They have no individual farms, — but he goes on to 
tell how they cultivate their fields. Moreover, he 
tells us that Germanic tribes, Usipites and Tencteri, 
crossed the Rhine with a great mass of men, in the 
year 55 B.C., driven out of their homes by the Suevi, 
ivho hindered them in their farming ^(agricultur a pro- 
hibebantur') . Again, Caesar tells of Germans who 
went into Belgium on account of the fertile land 
there, and this " in ancient times." He himself 
burns the villages and destroys the crops of the 
Sigambri.2 What the warriors whom Csesar met 
would think and say of such a peaceful pursuit as 
farming, appeared to the Italian almost a denial' of 
the fact. Farming was entirely a matter for slaves 
and women, not in any way the freeman's business. 
By the time of Tacitus, — and he had doubtless better 
information than Csesar could elicit in the hurry of a 
campaign, — farming is a more important subject.^ 
The description given in the twenty-sixth chapter of 
the Grermania is unfortunately so brief and obscure as 

1 Bell Gall. VI. 22. See also IV. 1. 2 b. G. IV. 19. 

8 Grimm, G. D. S? 1(3, believes that the Germans were mainly 
nomads (not, of course, savages) when they first appeared in history, 
but admits the beginnings of agriculture. 



48 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

to remain one of the favorite skirmish-grounds of a 
work that furnishes opportunity for battle in almost 
every page. But whatever the real method of Ger- 
manic agriculture as the Roman here describes it, 
there is no doubt at all about the fact ; there was a 
respectable amount of farming carried on in Germany 
when Tacitus wrote his book. Land, however, was 
plentiful, and pastures were probably much in excess 
of cultivated fields. 

Moreover, we have older evidence, not so direct, 
indeed, but of a very convincing character. The 
best writers on Scandinavian antiquities find it prob- 
able that in the later stone age agriculture was 
known and practised; while for the bronze age the 
same assertion is made with absolute certainty. 
Rock-pictures of that time show scenes from the 
farmer's life with plough and oxen; and grain lias 
been found in the graves. ^ Not so sure a witness is 
the allegory of Germanic myth ; and yet, if Mtillen- 
hoff's brilliant interpretation be correct, the prelude 
of our own great epic, Beoivulf^ tells in mythical 
language the story of agricultural beginnings among 
our far-off ancestors by the North and Baltic seas.^ 
The Anglo-Saxon kings boasted descent from Woden, 
the chief divinity of the Germanic race in the time 
of Tacitus ; but the genealogies go even farther back 
than Woden. The remotest ancestor that appears in 
any of them is Sceaf ;3 for Anglo-Saxons he seems 
to have been the type of the oldest times, the most 

1 Kalund in Grunclnss d. germ. Philol. II. 2, 209 f. 

2 First developed in Havpt's Zeitschrift, VII. 410 ft.; then in the 
book Beovulf, printed after Miillenhoff's death. 

3 Grimm, D. M. III. 380. See also Miillenhoif, Beovalf, p. (5. 



LAND AND PEOPLE 49 

ancient of all kings and heroes. The Saxon Chronicle, 
with the customary confusion of two religious systems, 
asserts that Sc^af was born in Noah's ark. An ex- 
quisite myth is told about him, standing in evident 
relation to those later romances and legends about 
the swan-knight which are most familiar to us in the 
story of Lohengrin.! In some Scandinavian country, 
or possibly in the old seat of the Angles on the Cim- 
brian peninsula,^ a ship without oars or rudder 
drifted one day to land, its only freight a new-born 
boy lying asleep upon a sheaf of grain and sur- 
rounded with treasure and weapons. It was a king- 
less land, and the folk hailed this omen joyfully, 
named the boy Sceaf (sheaf), and brought him up to 
be their king. We shall see more of this legend 
when we come to speak of Germanic ship-burial;^ 
for the present we are concerned with Miillenhoff's 
interpretation. "If we look closer at the legend," 
he tells us, "ship and sheaf must evidently mean 
navigation and agriculture, weapons and treasure are 
as much as war and kingship ; and thus all four gifts 
point to the chief elements and foundations of civi- 
lization among the ancient Germans by the sea." 
Miillenhoff goes on with his dens ille fuit ; but what- 
ever the truth may be about Freyr and the rest, it 
certainly seems safe to believe that our heathen fore- 
fathers held traditions of a dim past in which the 
first shadowy figure is the " culture-hero," the bene- 
factor of his race, who shows them how to till the 

1 D. M. III. 391. 2 Miillenhoff, Beovulf, p. 6. 

3 The prelude of Beoioulf is translated below, p. 324. Sceaf is here 
confused with his son Scyld, the warlike king, " Scyld Scefing." The 
story certainly relates to the old Ingajvonic legends, perhaps to Ing 
himself. 



50 GERMANIC OEIGINS 

soil. Moreover, the myth comes from a neighborhood 
where heathendom held stubbornly for long centuries 
after Southern Germany had been converted. From 
all this various evidence it seems clear that the early 
Germans were, to a certain extent, farmers; they 
sowed and tilled and reaped; but how much they 
gathered into barns is a more difficult question. 

We should like to know how far the idea of individ- 
ual ownership of land had become fixed, and how far 
a legal and executive system had taken the place of 
mere paternal or patriarchal jurisdiction ; for farming 
means property, and property means law. J. Grimm ^ 
points out that a nomadic race is naturally most 
interested in public or common lands, but farmers in 
private and divided estates. As we go back to the 
beginnings of our institutions and laws, folk-land, as 
the Anglo-Saxon terms run, grows more important 
than book-land, — the mark or common than the 
farm. Uncultivated land is highly important to the 
nomad; he looks to it for his hunting, his grazing, 
and his bee-tracking. For this reason, we hear so 
much about the mark. Moreover, land^jiKas. very 
plentiful ; there was enough for everybody, as Taci- 
tus expressly tells us. It is likely that farming tracts 
were occupied by small clans or families, and land 
was assigned by lot to the individuals. We thus 
have farmsteads (^Einzelhofe)^ scattered about the 
country as this or that locality invited settlement.^ 
With advancing need of land for agriculture came 
the increased power of single leaders and princes, 

1 R. A. 495. 

2 (rgj-m. XVI.: "coluDt discreti ac diversi, ut fous, ut campus, ut 
uemus placuit." 



LAND AND PEOPLE 51 

who doubtless took up by conquest, or otherwise, large 
tracts of country and let them out to tenants under 
conditions which varied according to the time and 
the locality ; the conditions grow more complicated, 
step by step, until we come to mediaeval Europe and 
the full-blown feudal system. The individual owner- 
ship of land seems to have found earliest and sharp- 
est development among the Anglo-Saxons ; but on 
the continent it was not unknown. To own land 
came to be the test of one's gentle condition ; and 
some writers are fain to carry back this instinct to 
the most primitive times.^Waitz, for example, thinks 
that the individual ownership of land measured the 
amount of ivergild^ and formed the very foundation 
of personal freedom.^ On the other hand, Von Sybel 
denies that primitive Germans had any interest what- 
ever in separate ownership of land. Arnold, in a 
more temperate spirit,^ simply decreases the amount 
of private holdings and increases the area of common 
land, the further we penetrate into the Germanic 
past. Permanent, settled ownership came into full 
force, he thinks, about the fifth century .^ 

This vexed question is one that we may well leave 
to the historian of our institutions. Philology and 
literature, however, are not altogether silent on the 
subject. The names of our popular fruits and vege- 
tables show conclusively their origin in Italy ; * and 
the same holds true of the refinements of gardening 
and the processes of the vineyard. But if the rude 

1 Work quoted, 1. 126, 133. 2 Deutsche Urzeit, p. 231. 

3 There is much literature on this subject. See, among other books, 
Seebohm, Primitive Village Community, and D. W. Ross, The Early 
History of Land-Holding among the Germans. Ross gives a host of 
references. ^ Hehn, p. 405. 



52 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

German had iio such arts or resources as these, he 
nevertheless very early learned the luxury of owning 
land. The warrior who served his king was rewarded 
not only by the arm-rings of gold or silver or bronze, 
but by land. The^young clansman of Beowulf, 
Wiglaf by name, who has left his prince to struggle 
alone against a dragon, is overwhelmed with shame 
when he thinks of the benefits the old king has 
heaped upon him. — 

He minded the holding his master had given him, 
stately homestead of sons of Wsegmmid, 
all the folk-right his father had owned, — ^ 

where Professor Scherer interprets folk-right to mean 
" share in the folk-land." ^ This is, of course, open 
to question ; but in our two oldest Anglo-Saxon 
poems, both of them based on quite heathen tradi- 
tions, we have reference to the gift of land to a person 
in reward for actual service. Widsith, " the ideal 
minstrel," says that he was with a king of the Goths 
and had from this monarch a precious ring : — 

and this to Eadgils then I gave, 

my helmet-lord, — when home I fared, — 

to the lov'd one in pay for the land he gave me, 

my father's heritage. . . . ^ 

The minstrels, however, seem to have held their 
estates by an uncertain tenure. That altogether 
charming little poem which worthily heads the list 
of English lyrics, " The Consolations of D^or," tells 

1 Beow. 260G ff. 

2 In the Zeitschrift filr oesterreichsche Gymnasien, 1869, p. 89 ff. 
Professor Kluge also makes o?-e in v. 2606 as much as "Besitz" (see 
Paul-Braune, Beitrage, IX. 192), and so I have translated "holding," 
— awkwardly enough. ^ WidsiS, 92 ff. 



I 

I 

LAND AND PEOPLE 53 

in the first person how a singer comforts himself for 
' the loss of his position as court-minstrel. After enu- 

merating some cases of particularly bad fortune taken 
from German heroic legend, Wayland the Smith 
coming first of all, Ddor tells in the last stanza all 
about his own plight : — 

Now I will say of myself, and how 

I was singer once to sons of Heoden, 

dear to my master, and Deor was my name. 

Long were the winters my lord was gracious 

and happy my lot, — till Heorrenda now 

by grace of singing has gained the land 

which " the haven of heroes " erewhile gave me. 

That past over, — and this may too ! 

Lastly, we may appeal to immemorial custom and 
the poetry of our old laws. Primitive is the fashion 
prescribed in oldest Germanic laws for one who should 
take possession of a piece of land. It was done by 
certain symbolic acts ; one must break a branch from 
some tree on the property, or set one's chair in the 
midst of the field, or drive a wagon across it, or 
/ kindle a fire upon it.^ 

In regard to the whole question of nomad or 
farmer, it seems most probable that the German of 
Tacitus was a nomad with the beginnings of agricul- 
ture, but also with a passion for warfare that threw 
all his other tendencies into the shade. He was a 
warrior : his nomadic traditions and his agricultural 
instincts found no expression in his own acts, but 
were left to slaves, captives, and women, the old 
and the infirm.^ His farm was mainly in pastures 

1 Grimm, R. A. 109. 

2 Germ. XV.: " clelegata domus et penatium et agrorum cura femi- 
nis senibusque et infirmissimo cuique ex familia." 



54 GERMAXIC ORIGINS 

with a few cultivated fields, in which he raised 
barley, perhaps oats, and rye, — the latter in the 
north, — and, of course, flax for his linen. 

It makes against the theory of mere nomadic life 
among the Germans that they were so careful about 
their boundaries. The main boundary of a land, 
called the " Mark " in German, and in English " March," 
mostly neutral and uninhabited, was generally a forest; 
at any rate, the word meant both boundary and woods. 
Marcomanni can be " men of the wood," or " men of 
the border." ^ Or the boundary might be a moor, 
a stretch of swamp, as would naturally happen in 
North Germany and in parts of England. The lore 
of metes and bounds is evidently of great antiquity 
in Germanic law, and particularly with regard to the 
smaller estates. Boundaries are fixed by many a 
curious fashion ; as far as the salmon swims up the 
stream, where a certain shadow falls, as a bird flies, 
or an egg rolls, or a hammer is thrown. ^ Later, but 
still in primitive times, rude marks, often of a sacred 
character, were cut into a tree.^ As in classical lands, 
these border marks and signs acquired a sacred char- 
acter, and came into touch with myths. Perforated 
stones, which the ancients seem to have held sacred,* 
served as sign of the boundary ; and so did the huge 
mound which marked a grave. Nay, the gods them- 
selves were thought to have laid out the boundaries 
of land aiid land ; for not only have we the general 

1 J. Grimm, Grenzalterthiimer , Kleinere Schriften, II. 33. 

2 Grimm, R. A. 55; Kl. Schr. II. 48 ; von Amira in Paul's Grundriss 
d. germanischen Philologie, II. 2, 110. 

3 " Notae in arboribus, quas decurias vocant. ..." Homeyer, p. 11. 

4 Grimm, D. M^ 076. A feeble child, people thought, would gain 
strength if he were made to sit in one of these holes. 



LAND AND PEOPLE 55 

testimony of such a word for "god" as Anglo-Saxon 
metod, measurer, but we find everywliere bold, irreg- 
ular lines of rock, or huge, isolated stones, standing 
in some connection with the devil, — behind whom, 
remarks Grimm, there lurks an ancient god. Such a 
devil's wall the modern tourist of the Harz Mountains 
may still see in the neighborhood of Blankenburg. 
The Scandinavian Thor had to do with boundaries. 
Often the border-line was marked by a place of wor-, 
ship and sacrifice ; and since any legal punishment in 
those days could be regarded as the offering to an 
offended deity, it is quite evident why a criminal 
should be punished " on the border." Kemble ^ 
refers to the well-known case in our Anglo-Saxon 
poem, Juliana. This saint and martyr is led " to 
the borders of the land, to that place where the stern 
ones determined in their hatred to behead her." ^ 
Other sacred traditions of the boundary-places are 
collected by Grimm in his essay on GrenzalterthUmer. 
Duels, ordeals, trials by combat, took place at the 
border, or on an island, — whence was derived the 
Old-Norse name for such a duel, Tiolmgang. Equally 
romantic and far more peaceful customs, such as 
wedding or betrothal, may also have been observed 
upon the boundary; certainly it was custom for a 
prince to receive his bride on the frontier of the 
realm, as witness G-udrmi : — 

In fair and noble fashion they met the lovely maid 
At the border of two kingdoms. . . .^ 

Nothing, however, testifies so clearly to the anxiety 
with which the German regarded the preservation of 

1 Saxons, I. 49, note. 2 j^l 635. 3 Kudrun, ed. Bartsch, 13. 



56 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

boundaries, as his excessive punishment for violating 
them. The severity of these penalties reminds us of 
the laws about wilful injury done to a tree ; and 
where the power of earthly law was brought to an 
end by the death of the offender, superstition took 
up the tale and told of many a wretch whose ghost 
haunted in this or that painful fashion the place where 
he had done his evil deed. It is perhaps not altogether 
accidental that in a bit of Danish popular tradition 
the punishment for this offence is the old Germanic 
horror of cold and freezing. Strande's wife had 
helped her husband move a boundary-stone ; and now 
she is dead and haunts the place each night, and is 
heard crying pitifully to her husband — his punish- 
ment may be even worse — " O Strande, I'm freez- 
ing ! " ^ Reaching down into modern times is the 
custom prescribed for a new purchaser of land, for 
an heir, or even for the king who has just obtained 
his throne. From all of these, custom demanded a 
formal inspection of bounds and borders ; as is so 
often the case, even comedy and farce seize at last 
upon a grave tradition, and we hear of villagers 
whipping their children at the border of the hamlet 
in order that this important boundary may be indeli- 
bly impressed upon the memory of future townsmen. 
In fine, we conclude from all this mass of boundary- 
lore that the desire to have and hold a settled terri- 
tory is Germanic instinct, is original, and needed no 
importing. 



1 Thiele, Danmarks Folkesagn, 11. 126. 



MEN AND WOMEN 57 



CHAPTER III 

MEN AND WOMEN 

Stature and features — A fair-haired race — Sense of personal 
beauty — Food and drink — Habits of daily life — Clothing — 
Adornments. 

We have long enough discussed the Germanic 
type ; let us look at the individual German, his per- 
sonal appearance, his home, the habits of his private 
and public life. About his bigness but one tale is 
told, from Csesar, Quintilian, and Tacitus, down to 
the writers of the dying empire ; all agree that he 
was huge of stature. To the small but wiry Roman 
this unspoiled son of the woods seemed a veritable 
giant. Even as late as Senlac, the Saxon is larger 
and taller than the Norman, whose Germanic blood 
had been crossed with a Gallic strain ; ^ and for the 
earlier period, skeletons seven feet in length bear 
similar witness. The race seems to have been pure, 
so that these bodily traits were shared by all its mem- 
bers ; 2 while the rigors of life and climate worked to- 
gether for a very strict survival of the fittest. Puny 
or undersized children, pronounced weaklings, were 

1 Freeman, Norman Conquest,'^ III. 480, note. 

2 Germ. IV. See also Huxley's article, already quoted, in Nine- 
teenth Century, November, 1890, p. 756 ff. The skull is of the " long " 
variety. 



58 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

either treated as we treat superfluous kittens, or else 
were tlirust aside into the byways of household and 
menial labor. 

The giant was no lolling, good-natured fellow ; his 
huge frame was easily shaken by passion, and in the 
hour of rage or battle, his blue eyes flashed an un- 
canny lire.i Even the Gauls, says Ceesar, were dis- 
mayed by the wild glances of their neighbors across 
the Rhine. Hehn is inclined to think that this feroc- 
ity is inherent in the glance of all nomads ; but it 
was a characteristic of the Scandinavian down to re- 
cent times, and was known among them as the snake 
in the eye, — ormr i auga. Svanhild was daughter 
of Gudrun and Sigurd, and had all the pride and fire 
such blood should bring. On a false charge of dis- 
honor, she is condemned to be put under the feet of 
wild horses, that they may trample her to death ; and 
it is done. " But when she looked up at them, the 
horses durst not tread upon her, and Bike [Bicci, 
Sibich, the treacherous counsellor of the king] had a 
sack drawn over her eyes . . . and so she ended her 
life." 2 It was easy for this fearful glance to attract a 
superstitious terror, and pass into the domain of spells 
and enchantments. We read that when a sorcerer 
was executed in Norway, it was customary to throw 
a sack over his head, for his dying glances might 
well be big with harm.^ 

1 Truces et cserulei oculi. — Germ. IX. Plutarch (in Marius, XI.) 
speaks of the Cimbrian eyes as " sky-blue." The blue eye and fair 
or ruddy hair were admired by the Hellenic race, and may have been 
their original type. Certainly their epithets for gods and goddesses 
bear out this view. 

2 P. E. Miiller, Sagahibliothek, II. 83. 

3 Maurer, Bekehrung d. norweg. Stammes z. Christenthume, II. 119. 



MEN AND WOMEN 59 

Huge of frame, blue of eye, — often one may fancy 
it a keen, hard gray, — the German rounded out the 
list of his blond attractions with golden or ruddy 
hair. We are not to forget that he was a cavalier, 
at least in his flowing locks ; to be a roundhead was 
to be a slave. This long hair was the German's con- 
spicuous feature, for he used various means to heighten 
its color, and we read of a Roman army in Gaul sur- 
prising certain Germans who had been making a raid 
in the provinces and were engaged in the amiable 
occupation of hair-dyeing. The Roman leader, says 
our chronicle,^ found them by a river, " some bath- 
ing, some, after their custom, coloring the hair red, 
and many engaged in riotous drinking." When 
Caligula was fain to make his Roman subjects believe 
that there were Germans among the captives whom he 
led in triumph, he made certain Gauls dye their hair 
red. Another emperor, Caracalla, went so far as to 
wear a blond "German" wig ; and it became fashion- 
able for ladies in Rome to dye their hair with a peculiar 
German soap imported for the purpose, — that from 
Batavia was the favorite, said to have been made of 
ashes mixed with goat's fat, — with which they ob- 
tained either a golden or a ruddy tint. Still better 
was actual German hair, — blonde wigs, — which they 
often affected.2 

We have said that the German cherished his flow- 
ing hair ; it was his outward and visible sign of free- 
dom, a precious thing. The gift of a lock of one's 
hair was a symbol of submission. Among the 

1 Ammianus Marcell. 27, II. 2. It was in the year 367. 

2 For the popularity of yellow hair in Rome, see Wright, Woman- 
kind in Western Europe, p. 11. 



60 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Frisians, men who took oath to anything touched hair 
or beard ; ^ and a story quoted by Grimm tells how 
those who were about to be beheaded took measures 
to save from stain of blood their long golden hair. 
Possibly some faint echo of this tradition lingered 
with Sir Thomas More when on the scaffold he 
"moved his beard carefully from the block." Par- 
ticularly the kings, the reges criniti of the Franks, 
were marked by flowing hair ; and if this were lost, 
with it went the fact and chance of kingship. Paul 
the Deacon, in his history of the Lombards, tells a 
pretty tale about one of their princes. A hostile tribe 
had resolved to put to death all the adult Lombards, 
and three of the princes escape on fleet horses. A 
younger brother, Grimuald, they deem incapable of 
keeping himself so long in the saddle, and are about 
to kill him that he may not pass into slavery ; but as 
the spear is lifted against him, the boy begins to 
weep, and crying, " Do not kill me I I can hold my- 
self on horseback ! " is spared, and rides away with 
his brethren. Nevertheless, he is overtaken by a foe- 
man and is again in danger of death ; but his enemy, 
impressed by the noble figure, the glittering eyes, and 
above all by the long blond waving hair, spares him, 
and leads him, still mounted, to the camp. But royal 
blood is in the boy's veins. He chafes at his disgrace ; 
draws a short sword, " such as lads carry," splits his 
captor's head to the skull, rides off, and triumphantly 
rejoins his brethren .^ The long locks were sign of 

1 Grimm, R. A. 147, 285. 

2 Paul Diac, Langob. IV. 37. Paul in IV. 22 describes the old fashion 
among his race as requiring neck and back of head to be shorn, and 
allowing the hair, parted in the middle, to fall over the cheeks down to 
the mouth. 



MEN AND WOMEN 61 

freedom in woman as in man. Fri-wif loc-hore — " free 
woman with curly or flowing hair " — is the phrase 
applied in an old Anglo-Saxon law.^ 

It needs not to add that Germanic complexions were 
blonde, to suit the hair and eyes. The type is seldom 
found in modern descendants, and was broken in Eng- 
land by intermarriage with the native population ; for 
while " the pure Anglo-Saxons were a round-skulled, 
fair-haired, blonde-complexioned race," the Celts had 
"mixed largely in Britain with one or more long- 
skulled, dark-haired, black-eyed, and brown-complex- 
ioned races," ^ and our present Englishman shows the 
crossing. In some parts of Scandinavia and in Sax- 
ony one can still find the "white girls and black 
bread." Recent German school-statistics ^ of one of 
these favored localities gave, out of 468,763 children, 
817,444 who were " blonde," and 136,014 who were 
"brown." Andree, however, asserts* that to-day the 
majority of that great " white " race, the Aryans, 
whose career of conquest helped Spencer to draw 
the conclusion that white races are "habitually the 
dominant races " in the struggle for existence, have a 
dark complexion ; among these white families, " does 
not the dark-haired type," asks Victor Hehn, "always 
conquer the blond?" How different is the story with 
our Germanic ancestors, or even among those early 
races whose modern representatives are uniformly 

1 Schmid, Gesetze der Angelsachsen (hereafter Ags. Ges.) , p. 8, § 73. 
As for color, compare our names Fairfax (fair-hair) and its opposite 
Colfax. 

2 Grant Allen, A.-S. Britain, p. 56. 

3 See Richard Andree in the Zst.f. Ethnologie, 1878, p. 343. 

4 Ihid. p. 335 ff. See, moreover, an essay hy the present author in 
the Uaverford College Studies, 1. 132 ff . 



62 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

dark ! For in Greece the gods, Eros, for example 
were represented with golden hair, just as in our 
mediseval miracle plays and mysteries the sacred per- 
sonages were always given golden hair and beards, 
and the angels wore "gold skins and wings." In 
the purely Germanic races gold and white are the 
aristocratic colors, and a Scandinavian legend ^ tells 
how god Heimdall, " whitest of the JEsir," wandering 
the green ways of earth under the name of Rigr, 
begets in succession Thrall and Karl (Churl) and 
Jarl (Earl). Thrall's complexion was black, and he 
was straightway a hewer of wood and a drawer of 
water, worked afield, fed swine, dug peat. Karl the 
freeman tamed oxen, raised crops, made ploughs, 
built houses and barns and wagons. One of his 
sons is named Smith, or the artisan; and he and all 
his breed are of a ruddy hue, and are like their 
favorite god, plain old Thor. Highest of all was 
Jarl ; when he was born he was " swaddled in silk," 
" his hair was yellow,^ his cheeks were rosy, his eyes 
were keen as a young serpent's " ; and as his com- 
plexion, so also his callings were of another color 
than Karl's or Thrall's. He learned to brandish the 
shield, to wind the bowstring, to span the elm-bow, 
to fit the arrow, to hurl lance and spear, to egg on 
the hound and tame the stallion, to swing the sword, 
and swim through the sea. To match this aristo- 

1 Rigsmdl : Edda, ed. Hildebrand, 112 ff. Simrock's Edda, p. Ill ff, 
Vigfusson and Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale (hereafter C. P. B.), 
1, 234 ff. 

2 Meyer, Altgerm.Poesie, p. 209, without special references, says that 
the typical Germanic hero's hair is not "blonde" but "braunlich." 
The " jugendkraftige Maun" whom we have met in description of 
Germanic heroes, is certainly " blonde." 



MEN AND WOMEN 63 

cratic type of earth, we find Balder, darling of the 
gods, "so fair to look upon that light streams from 
him, and the whitest of all flowers [or grasses] is 
likened to his eyelashes." ^ So the tradition passes 
down into the ballads ; and what reader of these 
abstracts and brief chronicles of old time does not 
remember how all the knights and all the ladies 
have fair skin and yellow hair ? Even Robin Hood 
has "a milk-white side." Churlish dispositions crop 
out in the dusky color of face or eyes or locks ; in 
some versions of The Ttva Sisters, "the younger sis- 
ter is fair, and the older dark" to suit their char- 
acters : 2 — 

Ye was fair, and I was din (dun). 

Dark complexion is a badge of low birth, and then 
comes to be the note of undesirableness in English 
feminine beauty. Again and again Shakspere re- 
turns to this theme in his sonnets about the "dark 
lady,"^ that "woman colour'd ill," with "mourning 

eyes " : — 

In the old age black was not counted fair, 
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name. . . . 

In a Scandinavian saga, twins of a dark complexion 
are born to a certain queen, but her husband calls 
them " hell-skins " and refuses to own them.* It is 
prejudice of race, this passion for the blonde, — at 
least in modern times ; and we find the Arabian prov- 
erb just as scornful of fairness as the German could 

1 Prose Edda, Gylfaginning , XXII. 2 Child, Ballads,2 1. 120. 

3 See, especially, Sonnets 127, 130, 131, 132, 137, 141, 147, 150, 152. 

4 Here we meet not only a touch of theology, but also that absurd 
old notion, brought out — among many other instances — in our English 
romance of Octavian, that of twins one child must be illegitimate. 



64 GERMANIC ORIGIIS^S 

be of the brunette : " Ruddy of moustacbio, blue of 
eye, and black of heart," which matches a phrase in 
our old friend the Aralian Nights : " Blue of eye and 
foul of face." ^ An international summary of the 
whole matter may be found in a proverb quoted 
by Uhland : ^ " Beware of a black German, a white 
Italian, a red Spaniard, and a Dutchman — of any 
color ! " It would seem to run counter to this doc- 
trine that we find in all Germanic nations, from about 
the year 1000 of our era, a decided prejudice against 
red hair. The so-called proverbs of Alfred affirm 
the red man to be a rogue ; while 

Alder-wood and red hair 
on good soil are rare, 

is a proverb found in nearly every Germanic dialect.^ 
To explain this we need not drag in honest old 
Thor by his red beard, — not even red-haired Loki, — 
nor appeal to the pictures of Judas Iscariot. It is 
the red which verges upon black, the dusky color 
that is meant, like those dull flames of hell which 
make darkness visible. The light, ruddy color, the 
golden red, has always a noble and gallant connota- 
tion ; of such complexion and such hair was Kaiser 
Friedrich Barbarossa, or the West-Goth Theodoric 
II., who is described by Sidonius ApoUinaris as hav- 
ing long and curly hair, snow-white teeth, and a skin 
colored like milk and flushed with manly red, — evi- 
dently a pattern of kings and Germans.^ It is not all 

1 Transl. Sir R. Burton, IV. 192, and note. 

2 Kleinere Schriften, IV. 45. 

3 R. Andree, work quoted, p. 335 ff. All witches are red-haired ; 
trolls and nixies tend the same way. See suflScient evidence in Roch- 
holz, Deutscher Glaube und Branch, II. 223 f. 

4 Rochholz, work quoted, II. 222. 



MEN AND WOMEN 65 

rhetoric, again, when Sidonius, describing the wed- 
ding of a young Frankish prince, arrays him jja glit- 
ter of gold, in flame of scarlet, in sheen of whitest 
silk, — but assures us that all these were easily peered 
by the gold of the flowing locks, and by the fairness 
and flush of the complexion.^ Add to these florid 
graces the power to hold us by his glittering eye, and 
we have a kinsman of whom we need not be ashamed. 
Even after we have stript the rhetoric from the de- 
scription, and the robes of civilization from the 
prince, after we have put him into a simple dress of 
skins, and a bit of linen, and thrust him back into his 
forest, there still remains a huge, keen-eyed, florid, 
yellow-haired person, impetuous, melancholy, cruel, 
passionate, fitful, with dreams of conquest, with long- 
ings dull and indefinite, with a contempt for civili- 
zation, and au eagerness to touch and keep some of 
its nobler elements, — a person, in short, whom no 
amount of ethnology is going to put on a par with 
the modern African savage. 

How far the sense of personal beauty was devel- 
oped, how far his " lassie wi' the lint-white locks " 
bewitched a Germanic youth with something higher 
than mere physical attraction, is a question not easy 
to answer. We must not inject too liberal a measure 
of romance into that old courtship ; but yet there was 
surely something of the grace of love even in Ger- 
manic forests. Late as the myth may be, we feel sure 

1 In the ballad Willie o' Winshurj/, Child,^ IV. 399, we have a fine 
match for the older figure : — 

'* But when he came the king before, 
He was clad o' the red silk, 
His hair was like to threeds o' gold, 
And his skin M'as as white as milk." 



6Q GERMANIC ORIGINS 

that when the Scandinavian god falls into utter love- 
madness for his longing after Gerthr, whose " white 
arms lightened all the sea and land," this was no 
new viking invention, but had its prototype in the 
passion of many an early warrior. Beowulf and 
the epic fragments show in their phrases a monkish 
abstinence when speaking of women: "gold-adorned," 
" fair-haired," " white," " fair," are the traditional 
epithets. There is more sense for manly beauty 
than for that of woman. In the one simile applied 
to woman, which is found in our wreckage of Ger- 
manic poetry, she is compared with the sunbeam.^ 
- Un romantic but useful is the query what this glit- 
tering and florid person had to eat. For in spite of 
his gigantic frame, he lacked endurance, — not so 
much the natural quality as that wliich is born of dis- 
cipline, systematic campaigns, and regular supplies. 
That he could bear cold better than heat, hunger 
better than thirst, is natural criticism for an Italian ; ^ 
and Plutarch notes the advantage enjoyed in this 
respect by the Romans in their fight with Cimbrians 
at Yercellse. No doubt, however, the uncertain 
amount and kind of food helped to make the Ger- 
mans less patient of fatigue. Often the larder must 
have been bare, often filled to excess. Their feasts, 
says Tacitus, while not of great variety and exquisite, 
are yet abundant ; ^ — and this is concession from a 
Roman of the enijDire. They ate the flesh of wild or 
half-tamed horses and of swine, with other kinds of 
game, mostly fresh, — recens fera^ says Tacitus,* — but 
doubtless often dried or salted. Caesar seems to have 

1 Meyer, Altgerm. Poesie, p. 112 f. 2 Germ. IV. 
3 Ibid. XIV. 4 Ibid. XXIII. 



MEN AND WOMEN 67 

believed a decidedly indigestible story about the habits 
of a German elk and the popular mode of snaring it. 
He says ^ that it does not lie down, nor can it rise if 
it has fallen ; but it takes its rest by leaning against 
a tree. The hunter has simply to cut nearly through 
such a tree and leave it standing apparently in its 
usual case ; the elk leans against it, overturns it, and 
falls with it to the ground. 

It must be admitted that these statements about 
the German larder point to nomadic life and tend to 
confirm the view of Jacob Grimm, who saw "nomad" 
writ very large over primitive Germany. But it is 
going too far to seize upon an assertion of Pomponius 
Mela to the effect that our forefathers ate raw meat,^ 
and hastily assign them to outright savagery. For 
they had milk, and probably butter and cheese ; ^ as 
time went on, they used more and more meal, whether 
baked in bread or eaten in a thick broth. In the ear- 
liest times they had nothing save wild fruits, apples, 
of an ignoble sort, one may think, and berries. All 
our modern fruits and vegetables came from Italy, 
and brought their foreign names along with them. 
Pytheas of Marseilles, already named as the earliest 
visitor to our shores who came from classic land, said 
that German tribes by the North Sea had hardly 
any garden produce or domestic animals such as the 
Greek knew, but that they lived on millet and other 
plants, on roots and berries.* Perhaps the earliest 
vegetable which the Germans imported from their 

1 B. G. VI. 27. 

2"Victu ita asperi incultique ut cruda etiam carne vescantur." 
Pomp. Mela, III. 3. 

3 Lac concretum, says Germ. XXIII,, which may mean these, or 
simply thickened milk. * Hehn, p. 122. 



68 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

neighbors in Gaul was the leek, a plant, it would 
seem, of decidedly magical qualities. Thrown into 
one's mead, it was a safeguard against treachery ; ^ 
and for whatever reason, when the great Helgi is 
born, his father comes back from battle with " a 
noble leek" for gift.^ Even among the Anglo-Saxons 
there were few vegetables, and chief of these was the 
leek; a garden is called outright "leek-enclosure," 
Uac-tun^ and the gardener is " leek-ward." ^ A Dan- 
ish ballad quoted by Professor Child * speaks of the 
happy land where all birds are cuckoos, all the grass 
is leeks, and all the streams run wine. There were, 
however, other Germanic vegetables. There v/as 
asparagus, or something very much like it ; the 
radish, of extremely large size ; and sweet turnips 
that Avere good enough to be imported for the ex- 
press use of the Emperor Tiberius.^ 

Saxons and Frisians by the sea ate fish; and of 
course the Scandinavians did likewise. Montelius 
cites King Sigurd Syr, stepfather of St. Olaf, who 
gave his guests fish and milk one day, and meat and 
ale the next. In a lay of the Edda, old Thor, who 
represented the homely life of days before the vikings 
were in vogue, says that he has been eating " herring 
and oatmeal porridge."^ Salt was valued highly, not 

'^ Sigrdrifumal, 8: "Throw leek in the drink, then I am sure thy 
mead will never be mixed with treacherous poison." Hildebrand, 
Edda, p. 205. 

2 Helgakv. Hundingsh. 7, Edda, Hildebrand, p. 151. 

3"Holitor (for Olitor) leacweard," ^YYigh.i-^Yu\kev, Anglo-Saxon 
Glosses, 416, 30. See also Wright, Domestic Manners, etc., p. 294. 

4 Ballads,2 I. 89. 

5 See references in Wackernagel, Eleinere Schriften, I. 23. 

6 Hdrhdr^slio^, 3, 7. Hafra is not certain in meaning. Vigfusson 
and Powell translate " goat-venison " instead of oatmeal. 



MEN AND WOMEN 69 

only as the best of all seasonings, but also for its anti- 
septic qualities. It kept the hunter's game, the coast- 
folk's fish. In Anglo-Saxon larders, salt meat was 
very prominent, and hence, as Wright reminds us, 
arose the custom of boiling nearly all flesh that was 
eaten.i The Germans themselves seem to have had 
no skill in the preparation of salt, an art first devel- 
oped by the Celts ; but Germany was especially rich 
in salt-springs, and these were the cause of many a 
desperate fight between neighbor tribes struggling 
for possession. Pliny and Tacitus testify to the ex- 
tremely rude fashion of salt-making among the Ger- 
mans. It seems that they piled up logs in the 
neighborhood of such a spring, set them on fire, and 
then quenched the flames by liberal application of 
the salt water. When the fire was out, a crust of 
salt was found clinging to the embers. 

Once more we see the close connection between a 
necessary or favorite article of food and the cere- 
monies of primitive religion. The salt-springs were 
places of worship, and a story told by Tacitus about 
the desperate war waged between Chatti and Her- 
munduri for the ownership of such a prize is of 
interest in many ways.^ The Germans, we are 
assured, held the place holy, deemed it in the imme- 
diate neighborhood of heaven, and believed that 
prayers nowhere else were wafted so quickly to the 
gods, — gods by whose grace it came about that salt 
was formed whenever the waters of the spring were 
poured upon a heap of burning logs. In the time of 
Emperor Julian, several hundred years later, we find 

1 Domestic Manners and Sentiments, p. 26. 

2 Tac. Ann. XIII. 57. 



70 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Alamannians and Burgundians fighting for the same 
sort of treasure.^ In short, salt and its not particu- 
larly congruent rival, honey, were the main condi- 
ments of the primitive German. 

How far more rich was the store of an Anglo- 
Saxon franklin ! Even a modern epicure might not 
be displeased with such a larder as Cockayne ^ has 
discovered. The Germans who conquered Britain 
did not "stuff their bellies with acorns," maintains 
this lively editor ; and the Saxon descendant knew 
well how to live, as witness a bewildering array of 
flesh and fish, with such side-lights as "oyster patties" 
and "junkets," and minor meats galore. We have 
testimony, a little later, about the boy's ordinary fare 
in an Anglo-Saxon monastery, — " worts and eggs, 
fish and cheese, butter and beans, and all clean 
things." Flesh he rarely got.^ But we cannot argue 
back from all this into the German forests. Only 
what seems sanctioned by an old tradition, or has 
come in touch with cult, has any value of this sort. 
For example, cheese enters into cult ; even in modern 
times it was thrown into a sacred well in Scotland, 
hence called Cheesewell, by way of propitiation and 
offering.* Frisians and Anglo-Saxons had an ordeal 
called the corsnced^ in which a bit of bread and cheese 
was put into the mouth of the accused; if he swal- 
lowed it, good ; if he was choked, it was a sign 
of guilt.^ As for milk, we have the sacred cow 

1 Hehn, Das Salz, 31 ; Amm. Marc. 28. 5. 

2 See his Leechdoms, ii., vii. ff. 

3 Colloquy of JElfric, in Wright-Wiilker, Glosses, p. 102. 

4 Liebrecht, Otia Imperialia, p. 10. 

5 R. A. 931 f. Rocbholz, Deutscher Glaube und Branch, p. 12 ff., gives 
a number of cases when cheese or milk formed the staple of a myth, 
and hence belonged to the tradition of cult. 



MEN AND WOMEN 71 

already noted, or the goat which in later Valhalla 
belief feeds upon the branches of the World- Ash and 
gives the milk of immortality to heroes of Odin. 
Here, too, belongs butter. Hehn draws a geographi- 
cal line between the realm of " beer and butter " and 
the realm of wine and oil. According to Pliny's 
Natural History,^ the Germans "made out of milk 
an article called butter, noblest food among barbar- 
ous races and one which sundered rich from poor." 
Butter was even used as a sort of ointment, northern 
pendant to the oil of southern lands. Milk and its 
products were of supreme importance to the nomad ; 
no wonder that Scandinavian goat, German cow, and 
Slavonic mare should loom out of the past in such 
heroic proportions. With the herd there must be a 
dog, and very properly we find a magnified and non- 
natural dog barking fearfully as herald of Ragnarok, 
the end of all things, in a late Scandinavian myth.^ 
The tradition of nomadic times pure and simple would 
seem to be preserved in Beda's explanation of the 
Anglo-Saxon name for the month of May, — "Three- 
Milk-Month " ; that is, says Beda, the month when 
the cows Qpecora) used to be milked three times a 
day : " So great was the abundance which once 
reigned in Britain and Germany." ^ 

With butter, as soon as any of the necessary grain 
can be raised, is ranged beer, which gradually takes 
the place of mead, the original Aryan beverage. On 
the subject of beer Hehn lavishes his learning with a 

1 XXVIII. 133; Hehn, C^dtiirpfl. p. 132. 

2 The Cimbrians had watch-dogs with them in Italy. 

3 "Talis enim erat quondam ubertas Britannise vel Germanise." 
See also Grimm, G. D. S.^ 66 f. The extract is from Beda de temporum 
ratione, Cap. XIII. 



72 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

fond indulgence. Beer, as he tells us,^ once held 
far wider sway than now ; Egypt knew it, and Spain, 
and many a land which later bore only the olive and 
the grape. Pytheas of Marseilles found our ances- 
tors drinking mead and beer ; while among the Celts 
of Gaul beer was the common drink, and only the 
rich and great used wine. This was the case in 
England, and for even better reasons. In the col- 
loquy just quoted, the master asks our monastery-boy 
what he drinks. " Ale [beer] if I have it, or water 
if I have no ale." "Don't you drink wine?" "I 
am not so rich as to buy me wine ; and wine is not a 
drink for children or fools, but for old and wise 
people." The Emperor Julian made a satiric epigram 
in Greek on this custom of drinking beer, which in 
his day was so common with Gauls and Belgians.^ 
For Germans, Tacitus bears ample testimon}^; but 
inasmuch as beer is inseparable from agriculture, we 
may argue not only that our ancestors of that time 
had taken some steps above the nomadic state, but 
also that beer could not have been their original 
drink.^ In earliest times mead ruled alone. Grimm 
sees in the name of the English river Medway a trace 
of the nomadic beverage; Medway would be "mead- 
cup," and there would be the mythical and classical 
whim of a stream " flowing from the horn or urn of a 
river god." * Certain is the name of an Anglo-Saxon 
banquet-room ; it is a " mead-hall," medo-cem, where, 

^ Cultvrpfl. p. 117 ff. 

2 Cider also was used by the Gauls. Amm. Marc. XV. 12, 4. 

3 There are traces of mead-driuking in Greece previous to the epoch 
of wine. Hehn approves the etymology of bier from hihere, and ale 
from oleum ; neither word nor thing original. Culturpfl. p. 125. Others 
assail the etymology, and claim native origin. * G. D. S.^ 457. 



MEN AND WOMEN 73 

however, beer-drinking, heor-\egu^ goes on, and the 
ale-cup, ealo-ivd&ge^ makes its round. Wine, of course, 
came later to the Germans, and in the time of Tacitus 
was bought now and then from Roman merchants on 
the border, — no national drink.^ Its origin is prob- 
ably Semitic. We owe this race, along with the ai-t 
of crushing from grapes the sweet poison of misused 
wine, the nobler gifts of measuring, of money, of 
the alphabet, and of what Helm calls the profound 
abstraction, Monotheism,^ — a heavy balance in favor 
of the Orient ! But let us return to our beer. Csesar 
does not mention it, nor Pliny ; it was in its begin- 
nings, like the parent art of agriculture ; but Tacitus 
speaks very distinctly, and opens his twenty-third 
" chapter " as follows : " For drink they have a liquor 
brought into some resemblance to wine by process of 
fermentation^ from barley or wheat."* He gives no 
name for this liquor, but it is undoubtedly beer ; and 
the trick of making it must have been learned from 
the Celts of the lower Rhine and the Danube.^ But 
it was not by any means modern beer, and Hehn 
warns the enthusiastic German youth not to fancy 
his remote ancestor indulging in such a beverage as 
the Fatherland boasts to-day; for hops, a most im- 
portant element, were not used in breweries until the 
Middle Ages. Naturally we find beer in ceremonies 
of Germanic religion. St. Columbanus, about the 
year 600, surprised a group of Suevi who were sit- 

1 It was prohibited as imported ware among the Suevi, because it 
made men soft and effeminate. Csesar B. G. IV. 2. 

2 Ciilturpfl. p. 64. 

3 In the original, one word, corruptus, over which there has been 
much throwing about of brains. 

■* Frumento : wheat, or rye ? ^ Hehn, 124. 



74 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

ting around a huge keg or vat ^ of beer, which they 
intended to offer to their god Woden ; and later, as 
a more indirect sacrifice, we hear of tithes paid to 
the church in beer. 

How much did the Germans drink ? This parlous 
question is sufficiently answered by Tacitus. The 
German meals, he says, are frugal, but with regard 
to thirst, there is not the same temperance ; and it 
is evident that these barbaric potations dismayed the 
moderate Roman. Much in the fashion of our famil- 
iar laments over the weakness of the Red Man, Taci- 
tus bewails as a moralist and exults as a Roman that 
this German " is conquered as easily by his own vices 
as by foreign arms." But even immoderate drinking 
has its amenities ; and civilization has witnessed as 
much excess as barbarism itself. How far the re- 
finements which we easily see in the banquets of later 
Germanic races — those, for example, described in 
Beowulf — may be assumed for earlier times, is a 
matter of doubt. We find certain courtesies of 
feasting prescribed by law for the Anglo-Saxons. A 
Kentish law of the seventh century ordains that if 
any one shall take away another's stoup (^steap) or 
cup where men are peaceably drinking, let him pay 
according to the old law one shilling to the owner of 
the house, six shillings to the offended person, and 
twelve shillings to the king.^ As Schmid points out, 
to remove a man's drinking-cup was a palpable insult, 
and would easily precipitate a quarrel among men 
who were wont to plead guilty to any charge sooner 
than to that of being pigeon-livered. The next laws 

1 " Vasque magnum quod vulgo cupam vocant." See D. M.'^ 45. 

2 Schmid, Ags. Ges. p. 12, §§ 12, 13, 14. 



MEN AND WOMEN 75 

impose a fine of one shilling, paid to the owner of a 
house where people are drinking, upon him who 
draws his arms in such a company, and twelve shil- 
lings to the king ; and if the house (^flet^ really the 
floor) be stained with blood, one must pay to the man 
his mundhyrd^ a fine varying according to the rank 
of the person in question. The law of Ine, after 
fixing penalties for several sorts of fighting, goes on 
to say that if the quarrel begins at a banquet (^geheor- 
seipe) or beer-drinking, and if one of the disputants 
bears it all with patience, the other is to pay a fine of 
thirty shillings.^ In a law of ^thelred, of course 
much later, the various breaches of decorum taper 
down from the king's peace itself to the good order of 
an alehouse ; the fine for breaking the latter depends 
on whether you kill your man, or simply wound him.^ 
All these laws testify to the Germanic habit of drink- 
ing, quarrelling, and fighting, with quarrelling proper 
as a vanishing element in the situation ; words soon 
yielded to blows, and the German would rather strike 
than revile. Holtzmann quotes very happily from 
the Nibelungen Lay : — 

. . . How fits it heroes bold, 
Like a pack of women to quarrel and to scold ? 

Evidently there was a certain measure of safety, if 
one could do it, in following the implied advice in 
Ine's law about the man who bears all in patience. 
To let the tongue wag was dangerous. In an Anglo- 
Saxon poem on the Destiny of Men,^ Ave are told 
that the sword shall slay many a man on the ale- 

1 Sclimid, p. 24. 2 n^id. p. 212. 3 yv. 48 ff. 



76 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

bench, many an angry tippler heavy with wine ; "he 
hath been too hasty with his tongue.'' 

Still, the flyting was by no means unknown at 
these banquets. There seems to have been a sort of 
formal entertainment in which first one, then the 
other, would hurl smart but pointed remarks at the 
opponent, delicacy being no object. For swing and 
dash, an Old Norse poem known as Lohasenna^ " The 
Flyting of Loki," takes easy precedence. Loki enters 
a hall where all the other gods and goddesses are 
assembled, demands drink, and passes the time of day 
with each deity in turn. The following, in Vig- 
fusson and Powell's translation,^ may serve as ex- 
ample : — 

Byggvi. Be sure, if I had a heritage like Frey, the Ingowin, 
and such a seemly seat, I would pound thee to marrow, thou 
ill-omened crow, and maul thine every limb. 

LoJci. What is the tiny thing I see there wagging its tail, 
snuffling about (dogiike) ? Thou wilt be always at Frey's 
hearth, yapping at the quern. 

Milder, but still forcible, is the flyting between Beo- 
wulf and Hunferth, which will be found below ; ^ 
while the language of the dialogue between Salomon 
and Saturn, and of the famous dispute between Soul 
and Body, may be termed parliamentary. Still an- 
other fruit of the banquet was the personal boast, — in 
Anglo-Saxon, gilpewide^ — the proclamation of one's 

1 c. P. 5. I. 107. 

2 See p. 114. For a vigorous aftergrowth of this style, see Dunbar's 
Flyting with Kennedy; as to influence of the French jeu-parti, see 
Schipper, Willicnn Dunbar, p. 64 f. Schipper, by the way, in his edi- 
tion of Dunbar, pp. 141, 151, thinks there is little connection of develop- 
ment between Dunbar's flyting and these Germanic specimens. He 
assumes Celtic influence and French models. 



MEN AND WOMEN 77 

own and singular virtues, together with vigorous re- 
vilings of one's foe, and promises of deeds of valor 
in the next fight. 

Yet the outcome of revelry was not always of this 
bellicose nature. In the frankness and brotherly con- 
fidence begotten of their cups, the Germans opened 
heart and mouth in council and discussed public 
affairs. Reserve and suspicion were banished. When 
they were sober again, they made a decision upon the 
question which they had debated at their feast ; and 
thus, says Tacitus, in admiration of so excellent an 
arrangement, "they deliberate at a time when con- 
cealment and deception are out of the question, and 
they come to a conclasion when mistakes are impos- 
sible."^ He omits to note the probable interval ol 
repose, which may have done its good service as well 
as the other factors ; for Germanicus surprised the 
Marsi after one of their great banquets, and the le- 
gions had easy work with a mass of prone and drowsy 
warriors, — " drunken," as the historian calls them.^ 

The German did not simply eat and grow strong, 
but he helped nature by exercise. He also understood 
the value of baths, for sanitary if not for personal and 
altruistic reasons. Races which wear fur or skins of 
any sort, instead of linen or similar texture, are apt 
to suffer from vermin to an almost incredible degree ; 
so that the story which follows may well come, as 
Hehn remarks, from the sincerest depths of Germanic 
consciousness. A certain king, in an Old Norse saga, 

1 Germ. XXII. The Rev. Mr. Sterne, in his Tristram Shandy, ap- 
plauds this arrangement. Similar practices prevailed among the Per- 
sians, and with uncivilized races in South America. 

2 Temulentos ; and they were " stratis etiam turn per' cuhilia prop- 
terque mensas. . . ." Tac. Ann. I. 50, 



78 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

catclies a merman, and the latter lives among human 
beings long enough to know their ways. The king 
asks him what has pleased him best of all that he has 
seen. " Cold water," he answered, " for the eyes ; 
flesh for the teeth ; and linen for the body." ^ When 
the Germans took to linen, — - which meant that they 
first learned to raise flax, — this must have mitigated 
their sufferings; but even linen could not entirely 
protect them from the pests, and hence a passion for 
bathing. The Cimbrians were bathing when they 
were surprised by the Romans at Aquse Sextise. 
Warm baths were a great luxury ; and in later times 
a German house had its bath-room, even among the 
less flourishing classes. In Iceland the warm springs 
were used eagerly for this purpose ; and such natu- 
ral baths were everywhere coveted property and 
caused many a sharp struggle for possession. The 
Goths were plundering Thrace, says Jordanes,^ and 
found on their march certain warm springs; these 
stayed for a vfhile their impetuous career, and they 
lingered " many days " to enjoy the luxury. Of 
course, as Jordanes tells us in this special case, there 
was always more or less medicinal and healing virtue 
ascribed to such a well and to the divinity which 
protected it. 

From the Germanic bath we properly pass to the 
Germanic wardrobe. Linen has already been men- 
tioned ; but it is doubtful whether it formed part of 
the German's original clothing.^ It was introduced, 

1 Hehn, p. 153 ; Weinhold, Altnordisches Leben, p. 160. 2 Cap. XX. 

3 Traces of linen, however, are found by antiquaries in remains of 
the Scandinavian bronze age, along with proofs of agriculture. See 
Kaluud in Paul, Gnindr. d. germ. Phil. II. 2, 210. 



MEN AND WOMEN 79 

however, very early in the historical period. Goths, 
Franks, and the rest come upon the stage dressed in 
linen as well as skins ; " dirty linen and short skins " 
is the costume in which certain West-Goths make 
their appearance.^ Wool, on the other hand, is of 
very ancient date as an element in our forefathers' 
clothing. A find, described by Montelius,^ shows 
ex:cellent woollen garments in use in Denmark dur- 
ing the bronze age, — that is, at least as early as 
500 B.c". The outfit consists of a cap, a long man- 
tle, and a sort of covering for the legs. Another find 
shows the clothing of a woman of the same period ; 
it was much like the dress of the man, and was abun- 
dant in quantity. We even find nets for the hair. 

With regard to the clothing of Germans in the 
time of Tacitus, there are two opinions. The G-er- 
mania tells us that the common garment of the people 
was a mantle or cloak fastened by a buckle or even by a 
common thorn. Without other clothing {cetera intecti) 
they spend whole days by the fireside. The richest peo- 
ple are distinguished by a garment (yeste}, which is 
not worn loose, in the fashion of Sarmatia and Parthia, 
but rather clings to the figure and the limbs. More- 
over, the Germans wear skins- of wild beasts, paying 
more attention to selection and adornment, the fur- 
ther they are removed from Roman influences. The 
dress of the women is like that of the men ; only the 
women are wont to v/rap themselves in garments of 
linen, which they embroider with purple,^ but use 

1 Hehn, p. 151. 

2 Civilization of Sweden in Ancient Times, trans, by Woods, 1888, 

p. 59 fe. 

3 As the commentators point out, this is not the Roman purple, but 
probably a native vegetable dye. 



80 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

without sleeves, leaving bare the arms, the shoulders, 
and the upper part of the breast. So far Tacitus.^ 
Pomponius Mela, the geographer, follows the in- 
stincts of his kind in making barbarism very barbar- 
ous indeed. Even in severe winter weather, he says, 
the German men are clad in mantles,^ or with the 
bark of trees ; and it is by exposure to cold that 
they harden their huge frames. Boys go naked.^ 
Lastly, Csesar and his Suevi may give evidence. 
These warlike Germans are described in the usual 
Roman fashion, as undisciplined and impetuous giants, 
who in that cold climate go without any clothing 
save skins, and these so small as to leave large por- 
tions of the body utterly bare.* Csesar says the same 
thing of the Germans as a race, — ■ they wear skins 
or aprons, which leave naked a large part of the 
body .5 

It must be admitted that these accounts make for 
a very slender outfit of clothing. But Miillenho:ff 
enters the lists for a larger Germanic wardrobe.^ In 
the first place, he bids us look at the climate ; it 
demanded at least a sufficient undergarment made 
of woollen or linen, together with a mantle or jacket. 
Instead of understanding Tacitus to say that the 
richest Germans are distinguished " by a garment " 

1 Germ. XVII. 

2 Sagis : the same word which Tacitus uses ; probably made of thick 
and rough woollen material. 

3 Pomp. Mela, III. 3: "qui habitant immanes sunt animis atque 
corporibus et ad insitam feritatem vaste utraque exercent, bellando 
animos, corpora assuetudine laborum, maxime frigoris. nudi aguut 
antequam puberes sint, et longissima apud eos pueritia est. viri sagis 
velantur aut libris arborum quamvis sseva hieme." 

4 Csesar B. G. IV. 1. 5 ibid. VI. 21. 
6 In Haupt's Zeitschrift, X. 553 ff. 



MEN AND WOMEN 81 

which fits closely to the figure, Miillenhoff would 
read, "by the garment," and would make the rich- 
ness and adornment of its material the test of its 
wearer's rank. That is, he would make not only the 
sagum, but also the vestis^ common to all Germans ; 
whereas many commentators understand Tacitus to 
mean that the rich have a peculiar kind of garment, 
an exceptional garment.^ This view is borne out by 
the testimony of Pomponius Mela, and of Caesar, who 
does not even mention the mantle. On the other 
hand, however, the complete woollen outfit found in 
Denmark, later customs, and several other consider- 
ations, go to support the claim of Miillenhoff. The 
neighboring Gauls wore trousers and shoes, — Gallia 
Bracata would be nearest Germany in these respects, 
— and a northern climate would force some such habit 
upon the nations. Summer and winter would natu- 
rally make a difference, and Germans may have 
showed themselves oft^nest to Roman eyes in scanty 
raiment, such as v/e know they affected for the hour 
of battle. Finally, the rhetorical impulses of the 
most truthful and sober Roman would exaggerate 
every difference of garb between the two races. It 
may well be true, remarks Miillenhoff, that a Ger- 
man warrior would sit whole days by his fire in such 
an undress as Tacitus describes ; but it is not said 
that he went thus out of doors. Miillenhoff gives in 
good faith a somewhat amusing illustration of the 
ancestral habit drawn from the ways of a modern 
German professor. " Does not many a man," he 
asks, " content himself, when he rises from bed, with 
dressing-gown, one other garment, and slippers, and 

1 Baumstark, Germania, pp. 585, 592. 



82 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

so work through the morning until he arrays him- 
self to go out ? " 

The question seems to hinge on the vestis of Taci- 
tus, — whether it was a general garment worn by 
high and low, which differed in its making and ma- 
terial, or Avhether it was a "lending" of Gallic or 
other culture, foreign to the Sabine austerity of a 
true primitive German. It is not an easy question 
to decide, and the doctors disagree radically. On 
one of the triumphal columns in Rome, German 
soldiers are represented in trousers and shoes, and, 
for the rest, either in a short doublet or else naked 
to the girdle. Of course they fought in scanty 
clothing ; ^ and Paul the Deacon even tells us of 
a battle between his countrymen and the Heruli, 
where the latter went into the fight with nothing 
but a cloth about the loins, "either to fight more 
freely or else to show contempt for wounds " : the 
explanation, however, would seem to make this uni- 
form an unusual one. Children at play wore little 
clothing ; witness Pomponius Mela above, and Tacitus 
with his nudi ac soi^didi, " naked and dirty." 

Even if we take the description of Tacitus, much as 
it leaves to be desired, for an authentic description of 
the Germanic dress, we may fancy at least a noble or 
wealthy freeman of that time in woollen sagum^ or 
cloak, woollen, or perhaps now and then linen under- 
garment, something like trousers, and his inevitable 
arms. We may safely add shoes, made out of leather 
which was tanned with the aid of bark. Clothing 
was made chiefly by the women, who span and wove 
steadily through the long German winter ; for Egypt 

1 Tac. UisU II. 22. 



MEN AND WOMEN 83 

is the only country of old times where men did the 
weaving.! German women had great skill in this art, 
and may well have taken pride in the raiment of their 
sires and husbands, and indeed in their own garb. 
The priestesses who came with the Cimbrians to Italy 
had white robes, with a girdle, and mantles of fine 
linen. Men whose wives and daughters are famous 
websters and spinsters — Pliny waxes fairly enthusi- 
astic on this subject — could not have been like Afri- 
can savages, and would hardly have gone naked for 
the sake of enduring the cold. A Danish variation 
of " carrying coals to Newcastle " is " to give white 
bread to a baker's boy " ; and surely it is the same 
thing when we assert that foreign culture had to 
bring the merest beginnings of raiment to a race 
whose women were experts in weaving and spinning ! 
The tradition held. Charlemagne, who clung to the 
old Frankish dress, made his daughters learn to spin 
and weave. Even in the time of Tacitus, rent or 
tribute from slave to master was often paid in cloth- 
ing.2 This, too, is hardly characteristic of the naked 
savage. 

We may conclude our brief description of Germanic 
dress, just as we began it, with a notice of some gar- 
ments found in a bog not far from the old home of 
the Angles on the Cimbrian peninsula. These clothes 
were in a good state of preservation, and seem to date 
from about the year 300 A.D.^ They probably be- 
longed to a wealthy man, and consist of two mantles 
of a square piece of woollen cloth (the sagum of 

1 Lippert, Culturgeschichte, 1. 173. 2 Germ. XXV. 

3 Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen,^ II. 221. His description is taken 
from the Danish ; the articles themselves are in the museum at Kiel. 



84 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Tacitus), with fringe one side and hogged on the 
other, and originally green in hue. There was also 
a coat of woollen, with sleeves of stronger material 
than the rest ; of still heavier material were the two 
pairs of long trousers, to which stockings were sewed 
fast. There was a place for the belt. Further, there 
were leather sandals with attempt at ornamentation. 
Not unlike this fashion was the garb of those Hen- 
gists and Horsas, who, not simply "in 449," but 
many long years before, were wont to take ship for 
the tempting shores of Britain. 

It is a well-known fact in ethnology that the cus- 
tom of wearing clothes springs in the first instance not 
from the sense of decency, and hardly from the desire 
of warmth, but from the passion for adornment. 
Ornaments were familiar to our remotest ancestors. 
In the stone age of Scandinavia, more than a thou- 
sand years before the beginning of our era, men and 
women had an abundant supply of this aid to individ- 
uality, — which some philosopher has discovered to 
be the cause of personal adornment, — mainly articles 
made of amber. Some centuries later, in the bronze 
age of the same country, amber has yielded to metal, 
and rings, buckles, buttons, combs, and the like, are 
found in great profusion.^ The yet later Germans 
were not without such adornments. Many articles, 
thinks the sanguine Waitz,^ were of domestic manu- 
facture ; but the greater part were taken as booty or 
obtained in the way of barter. Gold, in the historic 
period, was furnished by the Byzantine coins sent to 
Goths on the Danube, and thence by the old trade- 

1 Kalund in Paul's Grundr. d. germ. Phil. II. 2, 210. 

2 Verfassxingsges.1. 21. note. 



MEN AND WOMEN 85 

route through Poland to the Vistula, and so to the 
Baltic Sea; and this tribute-gold may have been 
worked into rings and collars by the domestic smiths. 
Perhaps, however, the jewellers of Byzantium sent 
actual ornaments to their northern trade, and half- 
breed bagmen may have wheedled into purchase 
many a chieftain and many a matron of the German 
forests.^ Like weapons, the old Germanic ornaments 
had a pedigree, and in the poetry of the day are 
called " work of giants," "the making of old days," 
" heirlooms of price." In Beowulf^ the Danish king 
says that he has settled a feud by paying tribute to 
the enemy, — 

To the Wylfings sent, o'er the water-ridges, 
olden treasure . . .^ 

and at the end of the same epic we are told that the 
hoard, watched by a dragon and concealed in a cave, 
consists of — 

old-time treasure . . . 
the huge bequest of high-born race.^ 

This mystery and this antiquity which hedge about 
Germanic treasure would seem to indicate that most 
of it was bought or stolen, and the making of it no 
common and palpable affair, to be seen in any gold- 
smith's shop. The same sense of mystery induced 
the poets of Christian days to talk of " heathen 
gold," which had come down from the olden time. 
As to the value of these ornaments in the regard of 
their owners, we have the sequence of Florus, "horses, 

1 See also Montelius, work quoted, p. 126 f. 

2 Beow. 472. 3 Ibid. 2233 ff. 



86 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

cattle, and necklaces," as the summary of German 
spoils made by Drusus. 

Nearly all the metals seem to have been known, 
but neither gold nor silver was mined by the natives ; 
and hence the lack of costly plate. When Tacitus 
tells us that his Germans care no more for silver than 
for common earthen vessels, we may certainly assume 
a rhetorical rebuke meant for the Eoman collectors 
of such ware at fabulous prices, — German simplicity 
once more a foil to imperial prodigality. Massive 
articles made of the precious metals, such as those 
silver vases which the historian mentions as now and 
then seen in Germany, would hardly appeal to native 
taste ; but ornaments of these metals, as well as of 
amber and glass, were freely worn by men and women. 
The conventional adjective of the minstrel, when he 
sings about dames of high degree, is "gold-decked," 
"gold-laden"; such is Hrothgar's queen in BSowulf^ 
and such is even the Hebrew Judith, whom the Anglo- 
Saxon poet calls " adorned mth rings." But the 
men by no means despised such decoration, especially 
kings and chieftains, who are called " gold-givers " 
and " ring-breakers " from their habit of wearing upon 
the arm spirals of gold, which they were wont to break 
off and bestow upon a valiant clansman. Neck-rings 
of massive gold — the so-called " snake-rings " — were 
the rarest and costliest of these treasures, arm-rings 
and finger-rings the commonest ; besides, we find in 
the graves necklaces, clasps for mantles, buckles, and 
so on, made of gold, of silver, and of a mixture of 
the two metals. Perhaps the spirals are best repre- 
sented in the museums of Europe ; for not only the 
warrior but the singer was rewarded by these rings. 



MEN AND WOMEN 87 

and sang the bounty of his patron from tribe to tribe. 
Widsith, the ideal minstrel of eai-ly Anglo-Saxon 
times, tells us : — 

And from the Burgundians got I a ring ; 
there Guthhere gave me glittering treasure 
in pay for my song, — no puny king ! i 

JElfwine, too (Alboin), is generous to the minstrel, 
and Ernianric gives him another ring, which he spends 
for land, only to have gift of yet another from his 
gracious queen : — 

Thus moved her fame thro' many lands, 
whenever chanced I was charged to say 
where under heaven I'd heard of the best 
gold-deckt queen her gifts dividing. ^ 

" To have gift of red rings," as Weinhold remarks, 
sounds much better than to draw wages or to take 
money ; but it was all the same thing. The love of 
these rings was as keen as the love of money nowa- 
days, and the appetite increased with what it fed 
upon. The Chatti, who regarded the wearing of 
rings as a sign of slavery, make, if the story which 
Tacitus tells ^ be true, an exception. It was a franker 
and more childish love of gold than our modern and 
tempered affection, in days when we have so many 
people to tell us of the vanity of riches. For instance, 
in the Hildebrand Lay — that solitary bit of jetsam 
from the wreck of strictly German heroic poetry — a 
chieftain returning home after years of exile finds on 
the border of his land the son whom he left an infant 
in the cradle, now a warrior in arms. The son insists 

1 Widsi^, 65 ff. 2 Ibid. 99 ff. 3 Qerm. XXXI. 



88 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

upon fighting his father, whom he deems to be an 
impostor, and the old hero expostulates in vain. 
When, finally, all persuasion fails, the sire appeals to 
the last infirmity of barbaric mind, and offers his arm- 
rings : — 

Unwound from arm winding rings 

of Kaisergold wrought. . . . 

In fact, plenty of this treasure and a good wife — 
with flocks and herds enough. Men entendu — made 
up the domestic ideal of the German. Says Giant 
Thrym in the Edda, waiting impatiently for the arrival 
of his bride : " Golden-horned cattle go about in 
my yard, all-black oxen. ... I have plenty of 
jewels and plenty of rings, — I lack nothing but 
Freyja!"! 

Finally, as in so many cases, the thing dear and 
desirable to man is lovely in the sight of the gods. 
Rings occur in cult and in myth. In the rites of 
Scandinavian heathendom, an oath was sworn upon 
the holy ring of the altar ;2 it was smeared with 
blood of the sacrifice, and was worn on the hand of 
the chieftain at all assemblies of the people. In the 
myths, we find Odin taking oath upon a ring. An 
interesting case is mentioned by Maurer,^ where the 
vikings in England during King Alfred's reign sol- 
emnly swear to leave the country. They take oath 
first upon the arm-ring, and then upon the Christian 

1 pryinskvi^a, 92 ff. See C. P. B. 1. 179. 

2 Maurer, BeJcehrvng d. Norioeg. Stcimme, 11. 221 ; and II. 190, note ; 
Grimm, R. A. 895 f . ; Vigfusson and Powell, C. P. B. 1, 422 ff. The ring 
was of gold or silver, and weighed from two to twenty ounces. 

3 Work quoted, I. 68. Maurer notes that only Asser and Florence of 
Worcester mention the relics. See also Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, anno 
876. 



MEN AND WOMEN 89 

relics. Our usual '' magnified and non-natural " 
ring is also forthcoming in the pretty Scandinavian 
myth — allusions to it occur in Anglo-Saxon poetry 
— of the necklace belonging to the goddess Freyja 
(or Frija), made for her by the dwarfish smiths of 
the hillside.^ Grimm compares it with the necklace, 
and even the cestus of Venus ; ^ and the interpreters 
are ready with a host of explanations, — grass, crops, 
twilight, stars, what not. Our main interest lies in 
the fact that old Germans, like old Greeks, gave a 
necklace to their goddess of love. We may conclude 
the subject with a bit of Germanic paraphrase. The 
translator of the gospels who made the Old-Saxon 
Heliand^ with the passage before him : " Cast not 
your pearls before swine," puts it as follows : " Ye 
shall not hang your pearls on the neck of swine, the 
treasure of jewels, the holy necklace^^ — and this last 
alliterative expression, helag halsmeni^ Vilmar counts 
as a bit of the old heathendom.^ 

1 A minute investigation of the myth by Miillenhoif in Hmipt's 
Zeitschr. XXX. 217 ff., Frija und der Hcdsbandmythus. 

2 D. MA 255. 

3 Heliand, ed. Heyne, v. 1722 ff., and Vilmar, Altert'dmer im Heli- 
and, p. 45. 



90 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



CHAPTER IV 

THE HOME 

Hatred of cities — Underground dwellings — Houses wooden 
and frail — Construction, and later improvements — The hurrj, and 
the hall — Descriptions in Beowulf — Banquet, songs, flyting, etc, 
— Amusements and vices — Hunting — The primitive house com- 
pared with modern dwellings. 

We pass to the Germanic house. The nomad has 
little need of cities, which are indeed a good index of 
civilization, if one bears in mind Aristotle's definition 
of man as " a political being," a being with gregarious 
instincts. Cities, we know, the German could not 
brook; his nomadic instincts were too strong, and 
these hated walls of stone, which so often set a limit 
to his raid and kept him from his booty, were but the 
mu7iimenta se7'vitii, ramparts and refuge of slaves.^ 
Such confinement, cried a German orator, robs even 
wild beasts of their courage. Indeed, the city is in 
every way offspring and lover of peace. It is inter- 
esting, as Leo points out,^ to note that among all 
Germanic races, the names of towns have no warlike 
reference such as we find in the names of people. 
Towns are named after races and families (Canterbury, 
Birmingham), or even after trees, stones, and natural 

1 Tac. Hist. IV. 64. 

2 Rectitudines Singularum Personarum, p. 14. 



THE HOME 91 

peculiarities. Not till he became at least in part a 
man of peace, did the German build his towns. Such 
cities as he took from his enemies were given over to 
plunder, and then left to crumble away in neglect. 
So fared the Roman towns of Britain at the hands of 
our invading forefathers.^ 

When actual German towns are mentioned as the 
seat of chieftain or king, nothing is to be understood 
which could compare with the Roman city, — only a 
cluster of wooden houses, convenient place for the 
assembly of tribes or clans. Such may have been 
Mattium, the capital town of the Chatti,^ which Ger- 
manicus burnt on one of his raids. This was doubt- 
less a very easy task, since there was nothing used but 
wood in the construction of a German house. The 
use of stone, like so many other arts, was quite for- 
eign to the north of Europe ; it is first found " by the 
southeastern corner of the Mediterranean, and spreads, 
like the use of wine and oil, step by step along the 
coasts and peninsulas of southern Europe, and thence- 
over the civilized world." ^ Stone masonry meant 
to the German something mysterious, uncanny, the 
doing of demigods in old time ; and so it easily fell 
under the ban of the supernatural. This massive 
solidity seemed hardly of human origin ; and the ear- 
liest Englishmen called such a building " the burg of 

1 For example, the city of Anderida. Whether our Anglo-Saxou 
poem, "The Ruin," is to be referred to the Roman city of Bath — as 
Leo and Professor Earle think it should be — is doubtful. See Wiilker, 
Grundr. d. ags. Lit. p. 211 ff., for the various opinions. Green {The 
Making of England) and Grant Allen {Anglo-Saxon Britain, p. 47) 
hold that the Saxons left the Roman cities of Britain to decay; but 
T.Wright {The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, p. 510) asserts that 
such towns were not generally destroyed. 

2 Tac. Ann. I. 56. 3 Helm, p. 111. 



92 GERMAXIC ORIGIXS 

giants," " the giants' ancient work." In the Heliand^ 
"greatest of stone-works" is the phrase applied to 
the temple at Jerusalem. Moreover, it is not un- 
likely that Stonehenge and other works of the sort 
are monuments of a race which preceded Aryans in 
the possession of southern and western Europe, a 
race which "stretched from the Nile valley along 
North Africa, and so through Spain and France to 
the Atlantic." ^ 

In the time of Tacitus, the Germanic house was 
built entirely of wood, — etymology tells us that 
Latin domus and English timber are the same word, 
— and was either an isolated dwelling surrounded 
by cabins for slaves and dependents, like the modern 
Mof in Baden and Westphalia, or else stood in a 
village. The latter is the type of house in our hdm 
or tun. The house itself was not very substantial, 
if we may argue from the custom of going under- 
ground in winter; and was probably even in the 
time of our historian a comparatively new experi- 
ment. The primitive house must be sought for the 
northern tribes mainly in those same underground 
dwellings which so rudely blot our picture of the 
Germanic home. These are not specially Germanic;^ 
Scythians, Armenians, races from all quarters of the 
globe, have used them. Hehn makes the later house 
an outgrowth of this primitive burrow ; from a mere 
cave, the dwelling grew in size and form, and '' little 
by little rose the roof of turf, and the cavern under 
the house served at last only for winter and the 
abode of the women." Villages made up of such 
houses can still be seen in Russia. We must not shut 

1 Hehn, p. 114. - Again see Hehn's admirable work, p. 436 f. 



THE HOME 93 

our eyes to the dai-ker side of Germanic life which 
this dwelling shows us ; in evading the cold of win- 
ter, our forefathers found an atmosphere foul almost 
to suffocation, and abundance of every sort of ver- 
min, — as is still the case with many places in Siberia. 
Yet here sat the women of the Germanic family and, 
as Pliny tells us, wove and spun, producing their 
exquisite linen in spite of all the squalor. Indeed, 
Virgil paints us a far cosier scene : ^ " For the peo- 
ple,2 they keep careless holiday in caves delved deep 
under the earth, with store of timber, nay, whole elms 
pushed up to the hearth, and heaped on the blaze — 
there they lengthen out the night in games, and 
jovially imitate draughts of the wine with fermented 
grains and acid service-juice." ^ 

In later times than those which Tacitus describes, 
the Norwegian farmer had a subterranean room by 
his house, or even under it, with a secret passage 
leading afield, which served as an escape from the 
attacks of the foe or from a sudden outbreak of fire.* 

Such was the nomadic German's winter home. In 
summer he had his wagon-like house, which could be 
pitched, after the fashion of a tent, for a day or two ; 
and which, even after agriculture had begun to tighten 
its hold and fasten men to the soil, was still a very 
flimsy affair. The primitive German, though led by 
his fate to the forest with its abundant material for 
building, set up nevertheless no substantial house, — 
why should he do it? Uhi hene^ ihi p atria ; all he 
asked was grazing and hunting and the coveted salt- 

1 Georg. III. 376 ff. 

2 Of the north, — Scythia, Germany, — " the frozen north " generally. 

3 Conington's translation. The beverage is beer. 

4 Weinhold, Altnord. Leben, p. 227. 



94 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

spring.^ Tiles, mortar, and the like were unknown 
to the German; and he seems to have been long in 
learning to use actual timber. Wattled work, twigs 
or flexible branches woven together, seemed to give 
enough stability for all his purposes ; and even on the 
column of Marcus Aurelius what we may take to be 
contemporary German houses are " of cylindrical shape 
with round vaulted roof, no window, and rectangu- 
lar door ; they appear to be woven of rushes or twigs, 
and are bound about with cords." Tacitus says the 
sole material for German houses of his time is wood ; ^ 
and this we may take to include the just-described 
twigs and rushes of the later Quadi and Marco- 
manni. When the German settled down to till the 
fields, he began to use the heavy rough-hewn timber 
of his forest. Nevertheless, the nomadic trick of 
carrying about parts of one's house was slow to die 
out. The Aryan's dwelling was his temple ; there 
hovered the souls of his ancestors, and there he had 
often buried their bodies. When the Norwegian 
emigration to Iceland was in progress, certain men 
arriving off the island coast, and ignorant where they 
ought to land, threw into the sea the house-posts 
which they had brought with them; wherever the 
timbers drifted to the shore, in that spot they built 
their new abode.^ Parts of a heathen temple were 
also carried to Iceland. 

1 Hehn quotes Seneca de Prov. IV. 4 : " Nulla illis domicilia nullaeque 
sedes sunt, nisi quas lassitude in diem posuit." 

2 Germ. XVI. 

3 Eyrhyggiasaga, in P. E. Miiller's Sagahihliothek, 1. 189 f. For the 
rest, R. Henning, Das deutsche Hans, " Quellen und Forschungen," 
No. 47, Strassburg, 1882, p. 163 ff., gives examples of such a i-eraoval 
of houses, taken from Indian, Greek, and modern German history. See 
also below, p. 443. 



THE HOME 95 

Evidently the house which Tacitus describes must 
have been a very light structure, wholly made of 
wood, or with plaited work in the less stable parts. 
According to William of Malmesbury, the first Chris- 
tian church in England was of the wattled material 
or hurdle referred to above. Foundation and floors 
are of more recent date, and the Norse flet is simply 
the earth itself stamped hard and firm. The modern 
peasant-house, which best shows in survival our old 
Germanic dwelling, is built directly on the earth, — 
this is particularly true of Saxony, — or else on a 
foundation made of posts. ^ To be sure, Professor 
Moritz Heyne, in his excellent monograph on the 
hall described in Beowulf ^^ says that all Anglo-Saxon 
Rouses had a stone foundation, and quotes both Ajiglo- 
Saxon and Gothic words in support of the assertion. 
But the general words for " foundation " do not prove 
for primitive times the existence of the specific part of 
a house, being rather applied later to the imitations of 
Roman architecture. Further proof of the absence 
of any elaborate foundation is seen in certain old Ger- 
man laws which seem to us not far removed from 
burlesque. But our ancestors doubtless took very 
seriously the law providing punishment for any man 
who should dig his way under the walls of a house, 
and so make criminal entrance. Still more sugges- 
tive is the ordinance against him who throws down or 
tears apart another man's house.^ Further proof of 
frailty comes from the Anglo-Saxon, where the " tree- 
wright," as a builder was called, certainly did not 
make houses which would last till doomsday. Wright * 

1 Henning, p. 166. 

2 Ueher Lage und Construction d. Halle Heorot, p. 32. 

8 Hehn, p. 114. ■* Domestic Manners and Sentiments, p. 14. 



96 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

calls attention to an episode in the story of Hereward, 
where the " bower " or ladies' room of a certain house 
was built in such a weak fashion, that when one day 
a bear broke loose and rushed for the bower, in 
which the lady of the mansion had taken shelter, 
it was only the prompt slaughter of the bear that 
saved her. 

The roof of the Germanic house was made of reeds 
or straw, was steep, and projected over the sides. By 
the nature of the case, fire must have been a dreaded 
foe ; and the burning of a German village is often 
mentioned in history as well as pictured on columns 
of triumph in Rome. In later times, the German 
lighted his hall in the long winter evenings with flar- 
ing torches, or with candles, — mere lumps of fat, — 
and the fire burned freely on the middle of the floor.^ 
Very picturesque was the Old Norse hall with its 
blazing fhes, of which the Sagas and the Edda tell us ; 
but the element of danger, said always to heighten 
the romantic, was not far to seek. Roof and walls in 
this constant smoke would dry to a perilous extent ; 
a bit of quarrel in the midst of drinking and revels, 
and we can imagine many an overturned torch or 
scattered fire, and many a banquet hall bursting into 
sudden flames. This wild gleam of fire lights up our 
old poetry on every hand. Hrothgar's palace, in Beo- 
wulf^ is one day destined to fall a prey to " hostile 
waves of flame." 

There towered the hall 
high and horned ; the hot waves biding 
of angry flame. . . .^ 

1 ". . . accenso quidem foco iu medio et calido effecto cenaculo. ..." 
Beda, Ecc. Hist. II. 13. 2 Beoio. 81 f. 



THE HOME 97 

The fine fragment of Finnshurg alludes to this as a 
common fate of castles ; while for Old Norse, Loki at 
the end of his famous flyting predicts a like destiny 
for the hall where he has been feasting.^ In the Nial- 
saga, most dramatic of all the Icelandic stories, we are 
told how the avengers, letting " housecarls " and 
women and children first go out, set Nial's house in 
flames. Similar flames, but on a far grander scale, 
and with an epic splendor, light up the tragic close 
of the Nibelungen Lay. Moreover, even if earthly 
flame spared, one had to reckon with the heavens. 
Lightning made sad havoc, and the Saxon Chronicle 
tells how one year " the wild fire " destroyed a vast 
amount of property.^ 

The proportion of adornment to utility in the Ger- 
man's dress gives us a hint of what we may expect in 
his house. Frail as his dwelling might be, and built 
for the simplest need, it nevertheless showed an incip- 
ient decoration ; and he began to adorn it long before 
he had made what we should call the merest begin- 
nings of comfort. We learn from Tacitus that the 
Germanic house was painted here and there with a 
glistening color, which was obtained from the earth, 
— probably of the description still found in the 
" ochre-swamps " of the Harz region ; but whether 
this painting was exterior or interior, or both, is 
hard to understand from the diflicult passage of the 
G-ermania.^ In any case, the early German painted his 

1 Lokasenna, 65, Edda, ed. Hildebrand. 

2 Our ballads are often as vivid as the sagas. See "Edom O'Gor- 
don," "The Fire of Freudraught," aud other songs of the border. 
Child, Ballads,2 VI., VII. 

3 Cap. XVI. Qus&dam loca, he says, " certain parts." 



98 GERMAKIC ORIGINS 

dwelling. Later, he carved the woodwork of it into fan- 
tastic forms, an art which found its best development in 
certain parts of Germany and in the wooden churches 
and houses of Norway; and he adorned the inner 
walls with paintings and even with tapestry, — the 
latter an imported luxury. It is not unlikely that in 
the oldest times shield and spear and other weapons 
were hung upon the wall, with trophies of the raid 
and of the chase. 

Whatever the primitive house, development was 
rapid; for war, and captivity, and service in Roman 
legions, put many a new notion under the Germanic 
helmet. Tricks of fortification were learnt from the 
imperial engineers ; and it is quite certain that our 
Angles and Saxons made extensive use of the mili- 
tary improvements which Rome had given to her 
province. The "street" (strata via} and the "cea- 
ster '' (castra') were soon borrowed, thing and word ; 
and in Beowulf we are told that the road which led 
up to Hrothgar's burg was " stone-variegated," — 
street wees stdnfdh, — paved in the Roman fashion; 
although it is plain that, as with stone in houses, so 
Avith these paved roads, the Germanic instinct re- 
garded the process as something uncanny and savor- 
ing of those mysterious giants who long ago had 
rolled up the huge piles of masonry. So we read in 
Andreas : — ^ 

Manful they marched by mountain-dales, 
stout of heart o'er the stony cliffs, 
as far as ran the roads before them, 
once built by giants, the burgs within, 
stone-gay streets. . . . 

1 Wiilker-Grein, Bibliothek d. Ags. Poesie, II. v. 1232 ff. 



THE HOME 99 

These roads are referred to the same source as cer- 
tain pillars and statues of stone which are mentioned 
in the same poem, and are called by this stereotyped 
phrase, " old work of giants," — eald enta geweorc?- 

While wall and ditch were soon adopted for pur- 
poses of defence, the burg was often put upon a hill, 
or in some equally commanding place. In Anglo- 
Saxon poetry, the burg is called " lofty," " steep " ; it 
stands on " the hoary stone." ^ A wall, of whatever 
material, soon encircled the place ; tun^ " town," is 
like German zaun^ a fence or hedge ; and in Anglo- 
Saxon the word eodor^ " hedge or wall," soon passes 
into the general notion of house or fortified place ; 
while in poetical speech the prince is called eodor of 
his subjects, their shelter. We have to distinguish 
between the " door" and the "gate," the latter being 
a most important strategic point, where the hottest 
struggle of a siege was mostly fought. The Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle, in what Sweet calls "the oldest 
historical prose in any Teutonic language," gives us 
a vivid account of the siege of a king who is visiting 
at a house in Merton. It is set down for the year 
755. The king has come to see a woman, and is 
with her in her bower (hur)^ when an enemy of his, 
one Cyneheard, comes up wi\h a besieging party, 
breaks through the " gate " and surrounds the bower 
itself. The king, aware of the danger, comes to the 
door, fights manfully and with success, until he spies 
his foe, the " setheling," and so in sudden rage, rushes 
out upon him, away from the vantage-ground of the 
door. They all set upon the king and kill him. 

1 Andreas, 1495. 

2 Heyne, work quoted, p. 9 ; Vilmar, Altert. im Hel. p. 10. 



100 GERMANIC OEIGmS 

Alarmed by cries of the woman, the king's thanes, 
who form his body-guard, come running up, — pre- 
sumably from the hall, of which the bower was a de- 
pendency, — and vainly fight the besiegers, falling all 
of them about the dead body of their lord. Next 
morning the tables are turned; up ride the roused 
thanes and soldiers of the king; the late besiegers 
shut the gates, and are in turn besieged, stormed, and 
cut down, — all save one. It is easy to see that the 
English house of 755 has made considerable progress 
from the Germanic house described by Tacitus, for 
an active race does not stand still during six centu- 
ries, even to be photographed ; and yet the dwelling 
preserves many of the old characteristics. The bower, 
detached from the hall, must have been fairly primi- 
tive ; and very early, we may think, provision was 
made for the domestic animals. True, in tlife houses 
of ordinary men, as still in some peasant-dwellings of 
Europe, man and beast lived under one roof ; but the 
home of chief or king must have been from the first 
independent of the domestic apartment and the stalls 
for cattle. In this case, we have to imagine the hall, 
with its sacred associations, its hearth and its fire, in 
the middle of a group of buildings ;i nearest to it, 
and sometimes part of it, were the sleeping-rooms, 
then store-houses, bake-houses, barns, treasure-house. 
Such a group of houses, with a gradually increasing 
family to occupy them, lying in open country, and 
protected by a hedge or wall, was a tdn (" town ") or 
a Jidm ; when it was a fortified place, high, a home 
of warriors, it was a hurg. However, as Heyne re- 

1 The plural is often used in speaking of a single place : on burgum. 
See Heyne, p. 38. 



THE HOME 101 

marks, this distinction is not constant.^ The hurg 
might hold a single family or a whole city full ; 
and hdm^ tun^ hurg^ and hyrig are all used indis- 
criminately in the names of later English towns. 
With the rise of towns, we bid farewell to primitive 
Germanic relations, and note not only the use of 
older walls and roads, but imitation of Roman archi- 
tecture. In this imitation, Anglo-Saxons were far 
more apt than their brothers on the Continent ; 
though it must be conceded that with all his borrow- 
ings, the Englishman kept a certain independence ; 
and while his language and his verse show material 
taken wholesale from classics or Romance, yet the 
heart of his speech, and the pulse of his poetry re- 
mained Germanic. There is, however, scarcely any 
material left to form a basis for our judgment in the 
matter of oldest English houses. Of the so-called 
Saxon architecture, very little has come down to us ; 
and these meagre remains, says Liibke,^ " remind one 
more of the carpenter than of the mason." Elaborate 
buildings, such as church or palace, were erected by 
workmen from abroad. How many of these foreign 
elements had crept into the Anglo-Saxon notion of a 
royal burg at the time when the materials of Beowulf 
were drifting together, or even how* far the poet of 
that epic added his own ideas to the traditional ac- 
count of Heorot, is a very difficult matter to deter- 
mine ; in any case, we must remember that the his- 
torical events of Beowulf are removed from the time 

1 Work quoted, p. 9. See also Kemble, Saxons, II. 550 ff. He gives 
a list of the towns meutioned in the Chronicle. Significant is the word 
msegburh as used to indicate the collective notion of a family, the clan 
in a narrow sense. 

2 In an essay on Gothic Architecture, in the Zeits, f. Volkerpsycho- 
logie ii.s.10. II. 266. 



102 GERMANIC ORIGIN'S 

of Tacitus by four hundred years, although the north- 
ern heathens would naturally preserve old traditions 
much longer than the converted border tribes. Let 
us assume that the burg itself, —the complex of build- 
ings, — as described in BSowulf^ is modernized ; but 
why should not the hall be authentic ? We will 
simply transcribe Heyne's account of the burg of 
Hrothgar, and then return to our study of the Ger- 
manic hall. 

This burg, probably surrounded with a wall, is the 
home of the royal race of the Scyldings, or sons of 
Scyld; and here, with thane and thrall, with queen, 
children, relatives, and slaves, lives King Hrothgar. 
Chief of all the buildings is the hall ; and near it is, 
of course, the bower of the queen, the hr'pd-hur^ where 
she and her children spend their time, whenever some 
particular occasion does not call her into the hall, to 
greet a guest at the banquet, or to bear the first 
beaker to her lord. " Hall and Bower " long remains 
an evident metonymy for Lord and Lady, — as in 
Wordsworth's famous sonnet.^ To this bower, more- 
over, comes the king at night when he has closed the 
banquet in the hall : — 

Then Hrothgar went with host of thanes, 
" shelter of Scyldings " ^ stept from hall, 
warrior mighty would Wealhtheow seek, 
couch of his queen. . . .^ 

Scattered in the neighborhood of this bower, and thus 
submitted to the oversight of the mistress, lay those 

1 To Milton : — 

" Altar, sword, and pen. 
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower. . . ." 

2 Kenning or metaphor for a prince. 3 Beow. GG2 ff. 



THE HOME 103 

other domestic buildings for store and kine and cook- 
ing of food, which are below the dignity of epic 
mention. A special house, however, is named as 
affording accommodation for Beowulf and his com- 
panions. Finallj^ on a cliff overlooking the sea, is a 
sort of fortified watch-tower, whence the strand-ward 
and his men keep sentry over the ocean approaches 
and guard the burg from surprise of sudden raids. 
Such is the Germanic burg as painted in an epic of 
the seventh century ; but it is difficult to shut our 
eyes to a certain touch of the mediaeval castle in 
some of these arrangements, let the background be as 
primitive as one please : the " stone-gay " path from 
the sea to the palace, the courteous challenge of the 
strand-ward as Beowulf's ship comes to shore, and 
the highly parliamentary answer of the chieftain, — 
these must be outward flourishes of the story, added 
by the monkish poet who was fain to let some bit of 
southern color fall upon this passing sombre legend 
of the north. If when, after the song of the min- 
strel in Hrothgar's hall, — 

The bench-joy brightened, bearers drew 
wine from loonder-vats. . . .1 

and the revellers thus forget their Germanic beer, we 
know that many other departures from the primitive 
order must be reckoned with in our epic. 

Such beautifyings might be tolerated in the vaguer 
architecture and the unimportant details, but when 
it comes to the hall itself, the scene of that struggle 
between hero and monster which had doubtless 
formed the subject of more than one old ballad, here, 

1 Beoio. 1161 f. 



104 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

in a locality connected at eyeiy turn with tradition, 
we may expect the primitive arrangement. 

The hall Heorot or " Hart," probably named so on 
account of the antlers which adorn its gables, differs 
from the usual centre and nucleus of a Germanic 
home, in that it lies outside the walls of the burg. 
The old hall had been within ; but riches and power 
incline the king to build a new one, which shall out- 
shine anything of the sort ever known to man ; and 
since within the enclosure there is no room for such 
an edifice, it is built nearer the sea, and probably on 
lower ground. The material is wood; the general 
plan an oblong. Massive pieces of timber are held 
together by iron clamps, and rest, if we are to follow 
Heyne, upon a stone foundation. If so, these are 
modern touches. We are told that the floor was 
gleaming, bright, of variegated colors, — 

On glittering floor the fiend then trod.^ 

It would seem that there were two doors, one at each 
end of the building; and this is borne out by the 
often-quoted passage from Beda : " So seems to me, 
O king, man's life in this world compared with that 
which we do not know, as if you were sitting at meat 
among 5^our thanes and nobles in the winter time, 
with a fire burning in the midst, and the hall full of 
warmth and light, but outside a raging storm of 
wind and snow, — and a sparrow should fly swiftly in 
by one door, and presently fly out again by the 
other. . . ."2 

1 B^ow. 725. 

2 Hist. JEcc. II. 13. A briefer and more spirited rendering is Green's 
in the Shorter History of England. Wordsworth has put the speech 
into verse, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, XVI. 



THE HOME 105 

The hall was entered on a level, or by a very few 
steps ; for, as Heyne points out, the horses which are 
presented to Beowulf as a reward for his gallantry, 
are led directly into the hall ; and we may add the 
later custom mentioned in an English ballad, where, 
by the way, the gift of an arm-ring has a decidedly 
ancient flavor : — 

King Estmere he stabled his steede 

Soe fayre att the hall-bord ; 
The froth that came from his brydle bitte 

Light in Kyng Bremor's beard. i 

Professor Child gives abundant references to older 
literature which support the custom, the most familiar 
being from the Squire's Tale : — 

Whil that the kyng sit thus . . . 

In atte halle dore sodeynly 

Ther com a knight upon a steed of bras.^ 

Outside of the hall and along the wall, in which was 
the principal door, ran a row of benches ; here sit 
Beowulf and his men until admitted to an audience 
with the king, and here they stack their " gray- 
tipped " spears. The roof and outer walls were 
probably painted in gay colors, a development of 
the art mentioned by Tacitus, and practised in the 
middle ages by the builder of a German castle.^ 
Our poem insists on the fact that Heorot "glistens," 
" shines far over the land " : it is once called " gold- 
gay," and some have thought of a tile-roof in different 
colors, or even that the roof was plated with actual 
gold. But we need assume nothing more than the 

1 Child, Ballads,2 II. 51, 54. 2 Aldine ed. Chaucer, 11. 357. 

3 Heyne, p. 44. 



106 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Germanic trick known to Tacitus. Huge antlers 
decked the gable. All burgs, it would seem, had 
such a decoration. Both the Anglo-Saxon author of 
Andreas and the Old Saxon poet of the Heliand speak 
even of the temple and houses of Jerusalem as fur- 
nished with these " horns." An Anglo-Saxon riddle ^ 
has such a horn for subject. A picture of an Anglo- 
Saxon house, reproduced in Wright's book^ from a 
manuscript of the ninth century, shows the roof of 
a building which must be the "hall," adorned with 
a stag's head and antlers. The windows of the Ger- 
manic hall had, of course, no glass ; ^ they were high 
up in the wall, or even in the roof itself. In simpler 
halls the smoke of fires escaped as it could, through 
door or window ; but there was often an opening in 
the roof directly over the fire, protected from rain by 
another and smaller roof above. 

Within, the hall is supported by a single central 
pillar, which, as Henning tells us,^ is one of the oldest 
characteristics of the Aryan house. Such was the 
olive tree about which Odysseus fashioned his sleep- 
ing-room ; ^ such the huge oak in the hall of the 
Volsungs, into which Odin thrust the sword. For 
the king there is a special "High Seat," which in 
Heorot, Heyne thinks, was placed at this central 
pillar;^ in Scandinavian halls it was put on the 

1 No. 85 of the so-called Riddles of Cynewulf. 

2 Domestic Manners, etc., p. 15. 

3 It was introduced in England, for church purposes, about 676. 
Heyne, p. 46. 

4 Das deutsche Haus, p. 171. 5 Odyssey, XXIII. 190 fe. 

6 Against this view, see Sarrazin, in his somewhat futile Beoioulf- 
studien, p. 19. He claims Beoioulf as a Scandinavian poem, and says 
Heorot is " plainly a Scandinavian tavern." 



THE HOME 107 

north side. A second seat or bench of distinction, 
probably opposite the throne, was meant for the 
prince and royal guests, like Beowulf. The High 
Seat had room for two persons besides the king, — 
the queen and his nephew ; while at his feet, on a sort 
of dais, lay the thyle^ a combination of master of the 
revels, orator, poet laureate, and jester. Inasmuch 
as the kin-system was the unit of Germanic life, the 
head of a house needed every conspicuous sign of 
authority ; and this High Seat was no kingly symbol 
alone, but was used by each householder. It was 
probably found in all Germanic houses, no matter how 
rudimentary its grandeur; and it may still be seen 
in the cottages of Scandinavian peasants. On the 
death of a householder, the eldest son took possession 
of this seat with all pomp and ceremony, and dis- 
pensed the hospitalities of his house to relatives and 
friends. If he were chieftain or prince, he would 
thenceforth, sitting on this throne, called from such 
associations gifstol, or gift-seat, bestow on vassal or 
neighbor the ring which he twisted from its spiral, 
or some other piece of treasure, even the right to 
hold estates in land, — and so gladden the hearts of 
his retainers. Last stage of all, we find this gift-seat 
in the tomb. The Scandinavian sepulchre was some- 
times built like a house, the freeman's final and per- 
manent "hall," where he is now and then found 
sitting on the High Seat and ruling over his ghostly 
home.i 

About the other sides of the hall were tapestries, 
of course no primitive adornment, though not neces- 

1 Weinhold, Altnord. Lehen, p. 498. See also the description of the 
tomb of Charlemagne. 



108 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

sarily late in the history of Germanic decoration. In 
Beoivulf they are called iveh : ^ — 

. . . Gold-gay shone 
webs along walls, wonders many 
for sight of the heroes that stare at such. 

The use of "weaving" in many figures of speech, — 
as " peace-weaver " for " wife," ^ — together with the 
analogy of ornaments in dress, allows us the inference 
that rude tapestries may have ornamented the Ger- 
manic hall in comparatively early times. Under the 
tapestries, and adorned with carvings or even with 
gold, ran the benches of the retainers, the trusty vas- 
sals of the king, who drank his mead or ale, feasted 
and sang, and shared his treasures. These treasures 
were doubtless kept in the hall itself under a picked 
guard, or else were assigned to a fortified separate 
building. 

Bearing in mind the date of our poem, but remem- 
bering as well the conservative nature of custom and 
of the traditions of social or family life, let us glance 
a moment at the picturesque scene which the poet of 
Beowulf shows us in Heorot. 

Ranged along the walls are the benches filled with 
vassals, warriors old and young, — as the old English 
phrase ran, dugu6 and geogd^^ — who drink from horn 
or cup, replenished by servants who hasten with ves- 
sels of ale about the room. On the throne sits the 
king, and at his feet lounges Hunferth the ihyle. 
Beowulf is announced, and his peaceful message ; 
the king bids his chamberlain go back, see that the 

\ 1 Beow. 994 ff, 

\ 2 See Bode, Die Kenningar in der Ags. Dichtung, p. 48. 



THE HOME 109 

weapons are stacked without, and usher in the guests. 
Leaving a small guard over spears and shields, Beo- 
wulf and his men, clad in their armor and helmets, 
enter the hall. Then Beowulf salutes the king, 
tells his name with a brave deed or two by way of 
credentials, and announces the purpose of his visit.^ 

Then the warriors went as the way was showed them 

under Heorot's roof ; the hero stepped 

hardy 'neath hehn, till the hearth ^ he neared ; 

Beowulf spake — his breastplate shone, 

war-net woven by wit of the smith : — 

" Thou Hrothgar, Hail ! Higelac's I, 

his kinsman and follower ; fame a plenty 

have I gain'd in youth. This Grendel-deed 

in my native land is known full well. 

Seafarers say how stands this hall, 

best of houses, for heroes now 

empty and useless, when even-light 

in the harbor ^ of heaven is hidden away. 

Then my retainers told me this, — 

brave and wise, the best of men, — 

that I, O King, should come to thee ; 

for my nerve and might they knew right well. 

Themselves had seen me from slaughter come, 

blood-fleck'd from foes, where five * I bound, 

wasted the giants : i' the waves I slew 

nicors by night, in need and stress, 

1 This long extract from Beoioulf is given not only for its illustra- 
tion of the ways of a Germanic hall, but also on account of its allusions 
to other parts of our subject. The author is responsible for these, as 
for other translations from Anglo-Saxon which occur in the book. 

2 Reading heor^e for heo'Se : see Holder, Beoioulf, and others. 

3 Reading hador for hecc^or "receptaculum," with Grein {Sprachs. 
II. 40) and Heyne. Wlilker-Grein, Bihl. and Holder read hdclor = " bright- 
ness." Grehdel, the monster, came to plunder tlie hall every night, and 
killed any whom he found there. 

4 Owing to discrepancy of this and the narrative below, Bugge would 
read " on the monster-sea " — the sea that breeds monsters. See Paul- 
Braune, Beit. XII. 367. 



110 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

avenged the Weders ^ for woes they bore, 

crush'd the grim-ones. — Grendel now, 

monster direful, is mine to quell 

in single battle. — And so from thee. 

Prince of the Danes, I pray indeed, 

thou Scyldings' Bulwark, a single boon ; — 

refuse it not, O thou Friend of Clans, 

Warriors' Shield, ^ now I've wandered far : 

that I alone with my liegemen here, 

a hardy band, may Heorot purge ! 

More I hear, that the monster dire 

in his wanton mood no weapon recketh ; 

hence shall I scorn — so Higelac bide, 

king of my people, kind to me ! — 

brand or broad shield to bear in fight, 

no golden ^ targe ; but with grip alone 

must I front the fiend and fight for life, 

foe against foe. There faith be his 

in the doom of God whom death shall take ! 

I ween that fain — if the fight he win — 

in battle-hall my band of Jutes 

will he eat unfearing, as oft before * 

the main of Hrethmen.^ — For me, then, needless 

to hide my head ; ^ his shall I be, 

dyed in gore if death shall take me. 

The bloody booty he bears afar, 

ruthless devours it, the Roamer Lonely, 

1 Sc. the Weder-Geatas, Jutes (according to some, Swedes), the race to 
which Beowulf belongs. 

2 Notice the complimentary heaping of metaphors for the king's 
person. 

3 Yellow ; the color of the linden bast with which the shield was 
covered. (Heyne.) 

4 ;S'c. "he ate." "Main " (A. S. ?7i«5'en) =" chief power." "Goes 
it against the main of Poland, sir ? " Hamlet, IV. 4. 

5 Danes, the men of Hrothgar whom Grendel has previously de- 
stroyed. 

6 These words are interpreted by some (see Heyne's note in his 5th 
ed.) to mean : " I ask thee to give me no guard of honor this night ; I 
will meet the foe alone." Others refer it to burial; "Grendel will 
devour me, and hence I shall need no grave." 



THE HOME 111 

marking the moorlands : ^ no more thou need'st 

for food of my body further care. 

To Higelac send, if Hild ^ shall take me, 

noblest war-weeds warding my breast, 

fairest armor, heirloom of Hrethel, 

and work of Wayland ^ . . . fares Wyrd * as she must." — 

Hrothgar spake, Helmet of Scyldings : — 

"For fight defensive, friend my Beowulf, 

for sake of helping, hast sought us here. 

Fought thy father ^ a feud unequalled ; 

Heatholaf with his hand he slew 

among the Wylfings ; Weder kin 

failed to hold him for fear of the host. 

Thence he sought the South-Dane folk, 

over wallowing waters the well-thewed Scyldings, 

when first I was wielding folk of the Danes, 

youthful ruled o'er the rich in gems, 

hoard-burg of heroes. Was Heregar dead, 

my elder brother had breathed his last, 

Healf dene's bairn : he was better than I. 

Then the feud with fee I settled,^ 

to the Wylfings sent o'er the water-ridges 

treasures olden : oaths he swore me. 

Sore is my soul to say to any 

of the race of men what ruth for me 

1 Sc. with blood. 2 Battle, death in battle personified. 

3 Wayland Smith. Weland was the Germanic Vulcan, of whom more 
under the head of Industries ; his legend is well known in all Germanic 
poetry, and is referred to in our oldest English lyric, The Consolations 
of the Minstrel Deor. 

4 This whole passage, stamped with primitive Germanic marks, is 
replete with mythologic interest, though the elegiac and mournful tone 
is specifically Anglo-Saxon. Wyrd, (= that which is accomplished) is 
Fate, a Germanic goddess; compare " To dree one's weird." 

s Hrothgar at once shows his knowledge of royal histories and gene- 
alogies, a great point with the Germanic chieftains. In the Hildebrand 
Lay, old Master Hildebrand, when he unwittingly meets his son, and 
asks the name of his opponent's father, says proudly : '* If thou namest 
one to me, I shall know the rest; boy, in the kingdom all folk are 
known to me! " 

s By paying the Wergild. See p. 178. 



112 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

in Heorot Grendel with hate hath wrought, 

what sudden harryings. Hall-folk ^ here, 

my warriors wane ; Wyrd hath swept them 

into Grendel's terror : God is able 

the deadly foe from his deeds to turn. 

Full often boasted the beer-drunk earls, 

over the ale-cup, armed men, 

that they would bide in the beer-hall here 

Grendel's onset, with edged terrors.'^ 

Then was the mead-hall at morning-tide 

dyed with gore when daylight broke, 

all of the benches blood-besprinkled, 

with gore of the sword: I had guards the less, 

darling clansmen, whom death had seized." 

With these speeches, the king and his noble guest 
have put themselves on the proper terms, and Hroth- 
gar proceeds to bid a feast. 

" Sit now to banquet, unbind from restraint 
victor-heroes as heart shall prompt thee." ^ 
There for the joined Jutish band, 
in banquet-room was a bench assigned, 
whither the warriors w^ent to sit, 
lofty-thoughted.* A thane attended, 
who carried in hand the carven ale-cup, 
clear mead poured out ; oft minstrel sang, 
cheerly in Heorot ; heroes revelled, 
warriors many, Weder and Dane. 

The songs sung to harp or zither ^ by such a min- 
strel were sometimes, it is true, gnomic verses full of 

1 Vassals, retainers; those who dwelt in the hall. 

2 Would await him with drawn swords. 

3 Evident parallel of our " Make yourselves at home." Other inter- 
pretations in Heyne's note, 5th ed. 

4 Men who thought of noble deeds ; bold-hearted. 

5 Symons, in Paul, Grdr. d. germ. Phil. II. 1, p. 7. 



THE HOME ' 113 

proverbial wisdom,^ but mostly, as befitted a warrior 
throng, ballads of heroic or mythic acts done by 
members or ancestors of the clan ; or else — for the 
family stock of songs would easily grow too familiar 

— some legend of other Germanic tribes would be 
eagerly greeted, like the song sung by one of these 
minstrels attached to Hrothgar's court as the men 
are riding up to the hall, after the combat of Beowulf 
and Grendel.2 Personal compliment would have its 

1 Such are, in late guise, the gnomic verses preserved in Anglo- 
Saxon poetry ; this proverbial poetry was very popular, and it is easy 
to justify the ways of Tupper by the practice of our ancestors. 

2 Very few words will be in place concerning the nature of Ger- 
manic poetry. Its chief fault is lack of artistic finish; it has "more 
matter and less art " than the poetry with which we are familiar. Its 
development in respect of form and style was rudely checked by the 
conversion, and never came to maturity. I have elsewhere made bold 
to apply to this early poetry of ours those infinitely pathetic wards of 
Goethe's Mignon : — 

Vor Kummer altert' ich zu friihe. 

Sorrow made it old before its time. But for the facts. Of course, the 
material is human speech, and many words used in poetry were used in 
daily life. Substantives, not verbs, are the chief consideration. A cer- 
tain number of words, however, constituted by their solemn and formal 
nature an exclusively poetical vocabulary, and these joined with certain 
artistic factors to make up our old poetry. Rhythm is the chief of 
these factors ; tone-color, the second ; parallelism of phrase is a third. 
Sievers has shown a far greater regularity in Germanic rhythm than 
was suspected by older scholars. With certain subordinate regulations 
of quantity and balance, the main law of our old poetry called for a 
verse which fell into halves, — in each half two accented syllables. 
These verse-accented syllables must also be word-accented ; in other 
phrase, the rhythmic accent coincided with the syntactical or logical, 

— the distinguishing element of all Germanic poetry. Scherer says 
that this desire to force home the root-syllables, the sounds which bore 
the sense, was due to the passionately earnest character of the race. 
To bind together the two halves of the verse, tone-color was employed, 

— what we call alliteration or beginning-rhyme. The first accented 
syllable of the second half was standard ; with the initial sound of this 
syllable must rhyme one, and might rhyme both, of the accented syl- 



114 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

place. On this occasion in question, we may fancy 
that some deed of Beowulf, or of a member of his 
kin, was sung amid the enthusiasm of the warriors 
and their guests, with shouts of applause and remem- 
bered delight of battle, with copious Sowings of the 
ale. But Beowulf has another proof to endure. The 
tJiyle^ or king's master of the revels, is not at his post 
in vain ; and the guest is to be put to his mettle in 
one of those flytings, or contests of wit, which seem 
to have been so popular, especially among the Scan- 
dinavians. Lolling at his chieftain's feet, heated with 
liberal potations, the thyle^ Hunferth, jealous and 
vexed, tries to jeer and scoff the guest out of coun- 
tenance ; and so he calls across to the bench where 
Beowulf sits : — 

Hunferth spake, son of Ecglaf, 

who sat at the feet of the Scyldings' lord, 

unbound the battle-runes : ^ Beowulf's quest, — 

haughty seafarer's, — him had gaUed, 

for he always grudged that another man 

more of fame m this middle earth 

should win under heaven than he himself. — 

" Art thou that Beowulf, Breca's rival, 

who in swimming strove on the spacious main, 

when ye in your pride must pro7e the sea, 

and for wantonness i' the waters deep 

ventured your lives? No living man, 

lables of the first half. In good verse, the two accented syllables of the 
second half never rhymed with each other. This peculiarity of the verse 
we have sought to retain in translation, as well as the parallelisms, in 
which Anglo-Saxon poetry bears some resemblance to the Hebrew. 
The use of alliteration is shown in the host of phrases like " have 
and hold " retained by our once poetical, now prosaic laws. For list 
in Anglo-Saxon, see Meyer, Altgerm. Poesie, p. 260 ff. 
1 ** Set loose the secrets of battle," i.e. began to quarrel. 



THE HOME 115 

nor lief nor loath, from your labor dire 

could you dissuade. O'er the sea ye rowed, 

ocean tides with arms ye covered, 

measured the sea-streets, strove with hands, 

glode o'er the waters. Winter's flood 

rolled high in billows ; in realm of sea, 

a sennight toiled ye : he topped thee in swimming, 

had more of main ! Him at morning-tide 

to Heathorseme kin the current bore, 

whence he hied to his home so lief, — 

beloved of his liegemen, — land of Brondings, 

stronghold fair, where folk he had, 

burg and treasure. His boast o'er thee 

the son of Beanstan soothly wrought. 

Now ween I for thee a worse adventure, — 

though in rush of battle thou brave hast been, — 

struggle grim, if Grendel here 

thou darest to wait this one night through." 

Beowulf spake, bairn of Ecgtheow. — 

" What a deal hast babbled, dear my Hunferth, 

drunken with beer, of Breca now, 

fabled his faring ! In faith, I say 

that I have more of might at sea 

than any one else, — of ocean-toil ! 

We twain once said, — we were scarcely boys, — 

and made a boast, — though both as yet 

youthful in age, — that on ocean far 

we would dare our lives : and we did it so. 

A naked sword, as we swam o'er ocean, 

we held in hand, hoping to guard us 

against the whales. Not a whit from me 

could he faster float o'er the flood away, 

more fleet on the waters : I would not leave him. 

Then we together i' the waves abode 

for five nights' space till the sea-flood twinn'd us, 

rolling billows, rawest weather, 

darkling night and northern winds 

battle-grim rushed on us : rough were the waves. 

The wrath of the sea-fish rose apace : 



116 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

me 'gainst monsters the mail of my body, 

hard, hand-linked, lent me aid ; 

on my breast was the battle-sark braided well, 

fretted with gold : then grasped me hard 

and haled me to bottom the hostile fiend, 

grim in his gripe. 'Twas given me, though, 

to pierce the monster with point of sw^ord, 

with battle-blade. Huge beast of the sea 

was hent with a thrust of band of mine. 

Me thus often the murderous foes 

sorely pressed : I served them well 

with my darling sword, as due and right. 

Not at all did their booty bring them joy, 

these evil-doers, to eat me there, 

seated to banquet at bottom of sea ; 

but at break of day, by the brand destroyed, 

on the marge of ocean up they lay 

put to sleep by the sword ; and since, no more 

in the foaming sea-ways sailor folk 

are let in their faring. — Light from east 

came God's bright beacon (the billows lessened) 

so that I saw the sea-cliffs high, 

windy walls : oft "Wyrd preserveth 

undoomed earl if he doughty be. 

Sooth it befell me with sword to kill 

nine of the nicors. — By night ne'er heard I 

of harder struggle 'neath heaven's dome, 

nor on wave of the waters wearier man. 

Yet I came with life from the clutch of foes, 

■worn with my wandering. Waves upbore me, 

flood over ocean to Finnas' land, 

welling waters. No wise of thee 

have I heard men tell such terror of falchions, 

bitter battle. Breca never, 

nor thou nor he, in the hot war-play 

such daring deed had done at all, 

with bloody swords (I boast not of it), 

though thou the bane ^ of thy brothers wast, 

1 Murderer. 



THE HOME 117 

the chief of thy kin, — whence curse of hell 

awaits thee, good as thy wit may be ! 

For I say ^ in sooth, thou son of Ecgiaf , 

ne'er Grendel such heap of horrors had wrought, — 

monster dire, — on thy master here, 

in Heorot such havoc, if heart of thine 

were as battle-bold as thy boast is loud ! 

But he has found, no feud will come, 

no deadly raid, from Danish people, 

fears no fray from the folk of Scylding. 

He forces pledges, favors none 

of all your race, but he revels on, 

slumbers and feasts, no feud expects 

among the Spear-Danes. — Straightway now 

shall I the jprowess and power of the Jutes 

bid him in battle. — Blithe to mead 

go he that listeth when light of morn 

o'er sons of men on the second day, 

sun robed in ether, from south shall beam ! " ^ 

Blithe then gTew the breaker of rings, 

hoary and battle-brave ; ^ help he waited, 

in Beowulf's boast, the Bright-Danes' lord, 

Shepherd of Clans, heard strong resolve. — 

Then was laughter of liegemen loud resounding, 

words were winsome. Came Wealhtheow forth, 

queen of Hrothgar heedful of courtesy, 

gold-decked greeted guests in hall. 

Then the high-born lady handed a cup 

first to the lord of the land of Danes, 

bade him be blithe at the beer-drinking, 

to his clansmen gentle. In joy he took 

beaker and banquet, the battle-graced king. 

Through the hall then went the Helmings' lady, 

on younger and older everywhere 

treasure bestowed, till the time had come 

1 Note how Beowulf's invective leads up through murder to the 
climax of Germanic sins, — cowardice. 

2 That is, " the hall will be safe after to-night's combat." 

3 King Hrothgar. 



118 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

when the gold-decked queen, in gracious fashion, 

to Beowulf bore the beaker of mead. 

She greeted the Jutes' lord, God she thanked, 

in wisdom's words that her will was wrought, 

at last on a hero could lean her hope, 

comfort of terrors. He took the cup, 

warrior bold, from Wealhtheow ; 

speech then uttered the stout in battle, 

Beowulf spake, bairn of Ecgtheow. — 

" This was my thought, when my thanes and I 

took to the ocean, entered our boat, 

that I would work the will of your people 

in thorough fashion or fall in death 

in fiend's gripe fast. I am fain to do 

deed of the doughty, or day supreme ^ 

of this life of mine in the mead-hall bide ! " 

Well the words to the woman seemed, 

boast of the Jute ; with jewels laden, 

the lady bright by her lord sat down. 

Then rose as erst the revel in hall, 

proud words spoken, the people glad, 

shout of victors, — till suddenly 

the lord of the Healfdenes listed well 

to find his rest. For the fiend, he knew, 

in the banquet-hall was battle prepared. 

In other words, they remember that it is night-time 
now, and the monster must shortly make appearance. 
So the Danes leave the hall to Beowulf and his 
Jutes. 

. . . The band arose ; 
eagerly greeted one the other, 
Hrothgar to Beowulf, hail he bade him, 
power in the wine-hall, — these words he added : 
" To never a hero my hall I've trusted, 
since first I could heave up hand and shield, 
my noble hall, save now to thee. 

1 Last. 



THE HOME 119 

Have now and hold ^ this house so lordly, 
have mind on thy glory, thy main declare, 
watch for the foe. — I^o wish shall fail thee, 
if thou bidest the battle with bold-won life ! " ^ 

Then they go, and anon the great struggle takes 
place ; the hall totters with the conflict between 
Beowulf and Grendel and would have fallen, had it 
not been so extraordinarily well built. The extract 
we have just considered is somewhat tedious, and 
exaggerates certain grave and obvious defects in the 
style of Anglo-Saxon poetry; yet the quality tire- 
some to us was welcomed by the Germans, who had 
a childish delight in repetition and detail; and the 
defects are inherent with poets that have not attained 
the self-control of the artist. This breathless hud- 
dling style was dear to the brawny old warriors. 
Again, where monkish learning has touched our 
verses, it has not adorned. They are in many parts 
tinged with Roman culture, and veneered with a thin 
coating of the new religion ; the speech of Beowulf 
is too parliamentary for the temper of those earliest 
Germans ; and perhaps the queen is something too 
much of a grande dame. But making all these allow- 
ances, we are safe in looking on this description as 
essentially Germanic ; nor can a tolerably critical eye 
fail to detect and leave out of account the touches of 
a more modern brush. 

The chief business of the hall was evidently such 
as we have seen, — royal receptions and banquets, 

1 The antiquity of this legal form is proved by the alliteration, as 
well as by its solemn use in this place. 

2 The passage is given in full except a few lines near the end, and 
runs in the original from v. 402 to v. 661. 



120 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the latter being, of course, the more constant factor. 
In these revels, men had cup or horn to hold in the 
hand, — " without tables ! " ^ says a plaintive German 
commentator. We have spoken of horn and cup al- 
ready ;2 but we must not forget the old blood-cur- 
dling habit, which has done service for so many orators 
and editors, of drinking from the skulls of slaugh- 
tered enemies. This custom was primitive and Ger- 
manic; Livy tells us the same thing of the Celts.^ 
Nor was it necessarily the skull of an enemy; one 
could pay this graceful compliment to a dead friend, 
and murmur, " Alas, poor Yorick ! " with even a nearer 
sentiment. Grimm cites many instances.* We know 
that Alboin met his death because " when he had sat 
too long one day at a banquet in Verona, with the 
beaker before him which he once had caused to be 
made from the skull of his father-in-law. King Cuni- 
mund, what must he do but send wine to the queen 
and bid her drink merrily along with her father. Let 
no one" — adds the good Paul — "let no one call this 
impossible ; I speak the truth in Christ, and I myseif 
have seen this beaker." ^ And in another place the 
same writer says : " Alboin slew Cunimund, cut his 
head off, and had a beaker made of it. This sort of 
beaker is called shala among them; in Latin, pa- 
tera^ Older than history is the myth of Wayland, 
best told in the Norse Vilhinasaga.^ Volundr, as 

1 Tacitus says these were used at the Germanic meal : " Sua cuique 
mensa." Germ. XXII. 

2 Many names occur in the Germanic languages to express " drink- 
ing-cup." See Vilmar, Deutsche Altert'dmer im Heliand, p. 37. 

3 Hehn, 438 ; Livy, XXIII. 24. * q^ d. S.^ 100. 

5 Paul. Diac. Hist. Langoh. II. 28. See also I. 27. 

6 P. E. Miiller, Sagabihliothek, 11. 157. 



THE HOME 121 

liis Norse name runs, treats in a fashion similar to 
Alboin's the bones of a king's two sons. 

In Beowulf little was said about the particulars of 
the feast ; in Judith^ a late epic on a Christian sub- 
ject, a banquet is described quite in the Germanic 
fashion, even if it is the doing of no less a person 
than Holofernes. He orders a great feast and bids 
to it "the eldest of his thanes," — the highest in rank 
and service. 

Then fared they thither at feast to sit, 

proud to the wine, his wicked fellows, 

bold mailed-warriors. Beakers tall 

were borne to the benches, bowls and flagons 

were filled for the floor-sitters : fey they took them, 

warriors stput, though he wist no thing, 

dread leader of earls. Then Olof ernes, 

gold-friend of men, was glad with wine, 

laughed and was loud in larum and din, 

so that many a mortal marked afar 

how the sturdy-minded one stormed and yelled, 

mead-mad and haughty ; admonished oft 

the crowd of benchers to quit them well. 

So the worker of evil all day long 

drenched his warriors deep in wine, 

stout treasure-breaker, until they swooned, 

plied his thanes till prone they lay, 

drenched them all as if death had seized them, 

drained of life. . . . 

This is Germanic through and through, — the "larum 
and din " agreeing with accounts given us by classic 
writers of the clamor and "wassail " cries of a Gothic 
banquet,^ — as indeed any one may see by comparing 
the biblical account; and it is much more strongly 

1 In the fifth century the Alamanni had the fame of being the hardest 
of German drinkers. Salvianus, quoted by Hodgkin, Italy, I. 310. 



122 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

and sharply outlined than the too shadowy descrip- 
tion in Beoivulf. This cheerful defiance of all local 
coloring is a saving virtue in the early English poets, 
and helps us to many a trait of their own time which 
they would have scorned to record of purpose. The 
old Saxon poet who paraphrased the gospels describes, 
much in the same fasliion as above, the feast of 
Herod, and also — though naturally as a far more 
decorous affair — the banquet at Cana.^ People 
gather in the "guest hall" of the "high house"; 
they grow " blithe " ; while the servants " go about 
with bowls and cups and pitchers," till "on the floor" 
— that is, in the hall — " was fair pleasure of earls," 
and from the benches rose delight of the people. 
The technical term among the oldest English poets 
to describe this bliss of revel was " dream," ^ — the 
joy that springs from drink, and song, and laughter 
in the warm hall, shared with one's household and 
vassals ; then it came to mean a similar state in one's 
sleep, which is the only meaning now attached to the 
word. Song, noise, — that was the Anglo-Saxon 
notion, as witness the three remarkable glosses:^ 
" Concentus^ i. adiinationes multariim vocum^ efenhleo- 
J^rung, vel dream. — Furor enim anwii cito fimtw% vel 
gravius est quam ira^ re)?nes, woden, dream. — Armonia 
[== HarmGnia]^ dream." A "dreamer" is a musician. 
However, the Germanic warrior could enjoy in hall 
both the ancient and the modern dream; for, save 
when a Grendel made the hall-night hideous, it was 
there, stretched on his bench, or on a rude sort of 

1 Heliand, 1994 ff.; Herod's banquet, 2734 ff. (Heyne's ed.). 
'- See also Vilmar, work quoted, p. 38. 
3 Wright-Wulker, 212, 36 ; 245, 7 ; 342, 39. 



THE HOME 123 

bed, that the clansman slept; and Tacitus tells us 
that it was often well into the following day when 
our dreamer rose,^ took his bath — hot, if possible, — 
and went off to the duties of the morning. It might 
be that another feast claimed his attention, some pub- 
lic affair, as when a youth was graced with spear and 
shield in presence of the clan, and so became a free- 
man, a warrior, and a pillar of the state. It might be 
a town meeting, or some other function of the citi- 
zen ; but it was certainly no manual labor, no care of 
farm or cattle. That was not the warrior's business. 
He would often, says Tacitus, lie whole days before 
the fire ; and if we ask what he was doing there when 
not asleep, we are entitled to the suspicion that he 
was gambling. This was his vice of vices ; the na- 
tional propensity to gamble was not a mere pastime, 
but a reckless, absorbing, passionate gambling, which 
often ended not only in poverty, but in slavery. 
When property was gone, when wife and child were 
gone, the German staked liis own liberty ; and if he 
lost his last throw, went voluntarily into servitude, 
even under a weaker man.^ This is an old Aryan 
trick. Dice are actually prayed to in the Vedas ; and 
dice remained prime favorite with Germans through- 
out the middle ages, even among women.^ A more 
innocent game, resembling our draughts or checkers, 
was known to the Germans perhaps as early as the 
fourth century; and the materials of the game, "bone, 
glass, amber, or earthenware," are found in Scandi- 
navian tombs, which date from the early iron age.* 

1 Germ. XXII. 2 Qerm. XXIV. 

3 See also Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen,^ 1. 113. 

4 Montelius, work quoted, p. 113. 



124 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Of course, the Germans hunted. Csesar says it was 
an amusement in which they took delight, a very 
reasonable statement. What more natural than for 
this giant to rise from his lolling .by the fire, like any 
man of muscle, sick at last of inactivity and sloth, to 
shake his invincible locks and course the woods for 
bear or boar or stag? Unfortunately, Tacitus and 
the Grermania tell another story, and say that Ger- 
mans do not spend much time in the chase. Holtz- 
mann and certain English editors, with heroic remedy, 
simply strike out the negative, and so square Tacitus 
with Caesar and with common sense. We know that 
the latter mentions game as part of the German larder; 
and since, moreover, your hunting is a war in little, 
we have reason to think of our forefathers as mighty 
hunters before their gods. How else shall we account 
historically for the English squire and the game-laws ? 
Still, we must go cautiousl}^ in these assumptions. 
Jacob Grimm saw even in falconry an old Germanic 
sport, and dedicates to it a chapter ^ of his G-eschiehte 
der deutselien Siorache ; but Helm's opposition to such 
a view seems based on very solid facts.^ All the 
refinements of the chase, he contends, are of Celtic 
origin, whence even the Romans borrowed more than 
one improvement. Nevertheless, we feel sure that 
the German, though careless of terms and methods, 
had plenty of plain, honest hunting, — wolf, bison, 
elk, bear, and boar. Something of the old spirit must 
assert itself in that merry scene of the Nibelungen 
Lay, which with conscious or unconscious art finely 
increases the horror of the tragedy that follows so 

1 Cap, IV. 2 Work quoted, p. 305. 



THE HOME 125 

hard upon its heels. ^ We hear the horn windmg 
clearly through the forest, the bay of hounds on all 
sides, four and twenty packs yelling after the game 
in as many directions, Siegfried laughing, joking, 
killing whatever is met, and at last in sheer sport 
catching a huge bear alive and binding it to his sad- 
dle ; he carries it to camp, where he lets it loose to 
dash through the kitchen, scare the cooks and upset 
half the food among the ashes ; and then, as the beast 
escapes all pursuit, and makes for the forest, we see 
Siegfried once more in pursuit, killing it and bringing 
it to the fires. It seems imbedded in our race and no 
importation, even from the Celt, — this broad-hearted 
joy in following the deer, this delight of hounds and 
horn, which ring out so bravely in English as well as 
German song, and which can still drive a London fop 
into prairie or jungle that he may find " something to 
kill." What race speaks in Shakspere's Theseus ? — 

And since we have the vaward of the day, 

My love shall hear the music of my hounds. 

Uncouple in the western valley. . . . 

. . . My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 

So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 

AVith ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 

Crook-knee'd and dew-lapped like Thessalian bulls ; 

Slow in pursuit, but matcli'd in mouth like bells, 

Each under each. A cry more tuneable 

Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn 

In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly. . . . 

It is not without full purpose that these scenes 
and doings of such a late period have been thrown in 
with extracts from the G-ermania and quotations from 

1 XVI Aventiure, xvie Sifrit erslagen ivart. 



126 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Beowulf. It is probably true, or nearly true, when 
Justus Moser calls modern peasant life in Germany 
a fair copy of the primitive condition of the race ; but 
we must make the important concession that parallel 
scenes may be rendered really different by a difference 
in the persons. Charlemagne doubtless lived in the 
midst of discomforts that would not now be tolerated 
by an Irish navvy; but, aside from the absurdity of 
comparing the persons, not a detail in the surroundings 
of one can be fairly appealed to for a picture of the 
surroundings of the other, unless we constantly insist 
upon this nobler element of personal character, and 
the relative nature of civilization. To do this, there 
is evident help in any bit of epic which preserves 
Germanic elements in comparative purity. With such 
caution, we may finish our consideration of the Ger- 
manic house by bringing it into contrast with modern 
homes. Hoav little of our modern home was repre- 
sented in the old German dwelling is readily seen 
when we examine familiar names like fz7e, tvall^ st7'eet, 
mortar^ tower^ 2nllar^ chamber^ and many others.^ The 
primitive Germanic house took different forms in 
pl^n and detail, which may be studied in Henning's 
monograph.2 This author thinks that the Saxon 
peasant-house is developed directly from the old Ger- 
manic dwelling; and here we see a combined stable 
and house, entered through a door large enough to 
admit a wagon. Right and left of the entrance are 
stalls for cattle and horses. Passing by these, we 
come upon the flet, — the living-room, — answering to 

1 Hebn, p. 115. All are foreign derivatives. 

2 See especially 29 ff., 5G ff., 136 ff. The Germauic hall is described 
153 ff. 



THE HOME 12T 

the primitiye liall, Avhose occupants our Anglo-Saxon 
epic colled fletsittende. Here is the low hearth, altar- 
like, by the further wall, but once in the middle of the 
room, and centre of the house in every way. It was 
an old custom for bride and groom, on entering their 
new home, to march thrice around the fire.^ Gn one 
side of this hearth are table and bench ; on the other, 
a washing-place, open, with water from the outside ; and 
immediately adjoining the stalls was a rude platform 
on which stood the beds of the family, and where the 
mistress of the house could sit and spin, while she 
overlooked all the house, — man, maid, and cattle. 
Equally interesting is the diverging plan of dwelling 
found upon the Cimbrian peninsula near the home 
of our own ancestors.^ In all these houses, for the 
most ancient times, we may assume dead as well as 
living tenants ; the German peasant was once buried 
in the house where he was born. 

Henning makes it probable that this old Germanic 
house was not very different from that of primitive 
Italians and Greeks. All go back to a common 
Aryan type. The word "hall," like the thing, is 
original ; it means that which protects or conceals. 
" Timber," as we have seen, is Latin domics, the build- 
ing itself. " Thatch," " door," are both original words. 
It seems probable that the primitive Germanic dwell- 
ing was an heirloom of Aryan days, and that the 
simple art of building house and home was learnt 
before the great exodus from the birthplace of that 
clan of destiny. 

It seems reasonable to assume that his house at 
least was felt by the primitive German to be his own. 

1 See Simrock, Mythologie, p. 600, 2 Henning, p. 48 ff. 



128 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

" Own " is a very old Germanic word — and f act.^ 
Besides his house, what did the freeman own? In 
the matter of land, to be sure, we have rival theories, 
individual ownership and the communistic plan ; but 
however that may be, the man who tilled land owned 
it while he tilled it, and owned what he raised upon 
it. The old German distinguished between real and 
personal estate ; the latter consisting in weapons, 
dress, ornaments, utensils, hunted game, cattle, slaves, 
and even the house itself ; — for could not this be car- 
ried about from place to place ? Of other kinds of 
property we could find curious examples gathered 
from old laws ; but we shall notice only the property 
in trees of the forest. In his treatise upon Haus- 
und Sofmarhen^ the signs or marks made on houses 
or other property, Homeyer shows that proprietary 
marks were pu.t on trees, tame stags, cattle, clothes, 
and what not. The Lex Salica^ for example, pro- 
vides that a man may mark a tree for felling, and no 
one else is to touch it for the space of one year ; after 
that it becomes again public property. The property 
in bees who hived in a particular tree has been 
already noticed. — -In fine, we may be sure that our 
ancestors were not in that delightful condition of 
certain African tribes where nobody owns anything 
and everybody steals what he can. 

1 See K. von Amira, in Paul's Grdrs. d. germ. Phil. II. 2, 150 ff. 

2 Berlin, 1870, p. 8 ff. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 129 



CHAPTER V 

HUSBAND AND WIFE 

The husband a warrior, the wife housekeeper and farmer — 
Eights of women — Germanic chastity — Woman as sibyl — Her 
courage — Wooing and wedding — How far love was a factor — 
Dower or price — Ceremony of marriage — Punishment for infi- 
delity. 

Let us come closer to the family life of our fore- 
fathers. VXhe free German was essentially a warrior, 
and such farming as he had was in the hands of his 
wife, who was helped by slaves and the weaker mem- 
bers of the households To look after the cattle and 
the horses was work for the freeman so long as no- 
madic habits prevailed ; but he had no taste for 
grubbing and raking and gathering of crops. NTo 
steal cattle — provided the theft was open, there 
was no disgrace in it ?-^ smacked of war ; just as 
the moss-troopers and raiders of the Scottish bor- 
der in very late times were not by any means with- 
out allies of gentle blood. Meanwhile, farming 
slipped into Germanic life under feminine escort, 
and began very modestly indeed. The primitive 
German wife, says Lippert, ^ " span wool, made 
clothes, cared for the fowls, and — tried her hand 

1 Grimm, R. A. 634. 2 Religion d. europ. QulturvOlker, p. 36. 



130 GERMANIC ORIGIN'S 

at raising barley." ^ In other respects her position 
in the state was pitiable enough ; and Wacker- 
nagel reminds us^ that, if we may believe Gregory 
of Tours, the Franks once held serious debate in 
one of their church assemblies whether or not a 
woman was a human being. Yet this importance 
in the household and in the farm gave her a 
certain responsibility, leadership, and dignity i, We 
must remember, too, what an important part the 
German woman played in matters of divination 
and religion ; add to the power of the wise woman, 
like Veleda, the chastity for which Tacitus so 
warmly praises the German wife, and we can im- 
agine that this was no race of sheer barbarians. Sue- 
tonius ^ lauds the insight of Augustus, who saw how 
much stress Germans laid upon noble women as hos- 
tages, caring little for men ; and so Rome began to 
demand this new sort of pledge from the barbarians. 
But we must not let sentiment run away with us ; and 
the famous eulogy will bear a bit of investigation. 
No part of the Giermania is so much admired as this ; 
and it is the fashion to accept it as a sort of con- 
spiracy before the fact with Goethe's EivigweihlicJie^ 
— in some respects, not without reason. Women, 
even in those days, were not deprived of legal pro- 
tection. Legal and statutory exclusion from cer- 
tain privileges is a proof that other rights exist 
and are guaranteed by custom ; thus we find the 
Salic Law, "oldest of Teutonic codes," ^ fixing cer- 

1 Barley had for the German three distinct merits : it grew quickly, 
needed little care, and furnished an intoxicating drink. 

2 El. Schr. I. 3. 

2 See also Urzeit (Deutsche Vorzeit, I.), p- 319. 
^ It dates from the fifth century. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 131 

tain principles of female inheritance, particularly that 
women may not inherit land. Of course, as is now 
well known, nothing is said about succession to a 
throne. From ownership of land woman was proba- 
bly excluded in all Germanic tribes, and this Salic 
Law represents the general point of view.^ Where 
we find daughters admitted to equal shares of an 
estate with sons, as among the Visigoths, we may 
assume foreign influence. K Moreover, women were 
not members of the state, but were under control 
of father or brother, w^ho punished or rewarded them 
at pleasure. v^The oldest English law is full of this 
doc trine. 2 Refractory wife or daughter, where stripes 
are unavailing, is sold or even given away. We shall 
presently see that the Tacitean account of the punish- 
ment meted out by German custom to an adulteress 
agrees exactly with this ^dew of a woman's position 
in the state. But custom is law; and custom had 
very early begun to give woman a certain legal 
standing. This process probably began in the rights 
of inheritance ; a runic inscription of ancient Norway, 
highly important both for its age and for its length, 
speaks " of the male heirs " (arhingd) and " of the 
female heirs" (arhingano). Thus, in the absolutely 
heathen and purely Germanic north, we have as early 
as the year 550 a definite word, corresponding to a 
definite fact, and recognizing the rights of female 
inheritance.^ Traditional equity gave the daughters 
ornaments and certain articles of furniture ; the rest 

i"De terra Salica nulla portio hereditatis mulieri veuiat." Lex 
Sal. 62, 6 apud Grimm, It. A. 407. 

2 Details in U. A. 738. 

3 Stone at Tune in Norway. See Noreen's Altisldnd. und Altnoriv. 
Grammatik, p. 189 f., and references there given. 



132 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

of the property followed the male line. Not without 
importance is the hint of Tacitus that among the Ger- 
mans of his day traces still lingered of a primitive law 
which gave all property to the sons, but only in the 
female line. He says ^ that a sister's sons stand with 
the uncle as high as with the father; "some even 
think this tie of blood to be holier and closer, and 
they have regard to it in the choice of hostages. . . . 
Still, the heirs are always the children, and wills are 
unknown." Now by the old notion of maternal 
inheritance,^ a man "would part more readily from 
his wife's child than from his sister's child ; for in his 
eyes there was more blood-relationship with the lat- 
ter." ^ The Germans of Tacitus had long passed this 
point of view, and had developed a high sense of the 
paternal relationship ; but survivals occurred like the 
above, and gave a certain support to the position of 
woman. In slave-law the old rule held, — partus se- 
quitur ventrem, the offspring belonged with the mother ; 
but even in this respect the ancient laws show con- 
siderable divergence. Proof of woman's position is 
helped, as has been already remarked, by a study of 
Germanic myths. If the ways of gods and goddesses 
reflect earthly existence, — and we are sure they do, — • 
the worship of a Nerthus seems impossible for a com- 
munity which gave no rights and paid no respect to 
women. When Tacitus tells us of a tribe of Ger- 
mans in the north " which is ruled by a woman," * we 
may, it is true, call this a fable, like the other won- 

1 Germ. XX. 

2 Obviously, in communities without settled married relations, ma- 
ternal inheritance is the only certain method. 

3 Lippert, Rel. d. eur. Culturv. p. 60. * Ge^in. XLV. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 133 

ders which his artistic instinct marshalled at the end 
of his book and on the border of the frozen world, 
and we may ascribe it to the misunderstanding of a 
Finnish word; but for all the fable, there may be 
something in the legend beyond what meets the ear 
of the etymologist. We know that the lady of Mer- 
cia was no fiction ; as Warton^ says, "ladies in Eng- 
land were anciently sheriffs of counties I " And 
lastly, let the grave itself bear witness. Antiquaries 
in Scandinavia refer to 1000 B.C. the body of a 
woman found buried in a tree-coffin, with a dagger 
by her side. Montelius, perhaps with too much cre- 
dulity, calls this and similar finds " a remarkable inti- 
mation of Amazons during the bronze age in the 
north." 2 

It is popularly supposed that women were lifted 
to their present place mainly by the influence of the 
church and of chivalry. This is in great measure 
true. In the eighth century, — say a hundred years 
after the conversion, — nuns in England take active 
part in literature. They correspond with monks 
and bishops in Germany ; and one of them, living in 
German cloisters, writes the life of her brothers, the 
missionaries Willibald and Winnibald.^ This Wal- 
burga, however, is outdone by a nun of the tenth 
century, Hrotsvith of Gandersheim, the famous medi- 
seval blue-stocking. She wrote legends and history 
in Latin verse, and actually made the first attempts 
at dramatic composition, of which we have any record, 

1 History of English Poetry, II. 186. 

2 Work quoted, p. 62. 

3 See also Wattenbach, DeutscJilands Geschichtsquellen im Mittel- 
alter,^ p. 97. 



134 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

since the downfall of classical culture.^ Now there 
must have been some basis for this in the old life. 
From the start, if we may believe Wackernagel,^ 
knowledge of writing was largely in the hands of 
women ; in Scandinavia women seem to know most 
about the making and reading of runes. The sibyl 
was very potent in Germany, and, as we shall pres- 
ently see, united to her knowledge of divination and 
mystic signs a certain majesty and sanctity that must 
have helped her sisters in more ways than one. 

Again, the care of the house and farm, onerous as 
it might be, gave dignity to the mother and wife. 
In higher walks of life she shares her husband's 
state, — witness Wealhtheow in Beoivulf. We find 
the daughter of Hrothgar performing offices like 
those of the queen ; Freawaru also goes through the 
hall, bears the ale-cup to thirsty warriors, bestows 
treasure and greets the guests.^ The purity of Ger- 
man family life was eagerly held up by Tacitus as 
a lesson for his countrymen. Caesar had already 
praised this feature, and it became a by-word with 
the later chroniclers. A writer of the fifth century * 
says that the Germans are all chaste, except the 
Huns and Alans, — an exception which does not 
affect the statement. In Rome, family relations were 
going from bad to worse; and Tacitus, eager to 
teach his countrymen that strength in man or state 
depends on purity, painted too bright a picture. It 
has the pink-and-white unreality of a Dresden-china 
group. In some respects it reminds us of Cooper's 

1 Ebert, Lit. d. Mittelalters, III. 286, 3M ff., gives a full descriptiou 
of her personality and her work. 

2 XL Schr. 1. 14, note. 3 Beow. 2020 ff. 
4 Salvianus, quoted by Hodgkin, Italy, 1. 507. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 135 

eulogy of our red man, or of the far more grotesque 
savage ideals presented by French writers at the be- 
ginning of this century. 

Briefly, we must not understand the chastity and 
simplicity of Germanic life to have been coupled with 
those qualities which in our own stage of culture are 
sure to be found among persons who are simple and 
chaste. This German woman, who doubtless had a 
plenty of rough household virtues, with her vigorous 
barn-yard brood of children, passed into history as a 
sort of Cornelia or Lucretia, ruling an ideal family, 
where the daughters all look rosy and firm of flesh, 
and spin, and sing ballads about Arminius, with a 
shy, downward look when a certain brave young war- 
rior of the next village is mentioned in domestic con- 
versation, and where the sons hurl lances and speak 
tumultuous truth. Romance, as in Freytag's books, 
has helped the picture. Leafy forest, gay greenwood, 
are very well ; but neither in Spain which coined the 
proverb nor yet in Germany, is it " always May " ; 
and the scene shifts to those underground dwellings, 
covered for sake of warmth with dung, where the 
household passed its winter, — paterfamilias in that 
"single garment," moody and idle by the fire, the 
women weaving and spinning, and all glad of the 
coarsest sort of food. Between the picture of romance 
and the squalor and savagery which certain of the 
modern school are fain to pour over every portion 
of our forefathers' existence, lies a middle ground 
of common sense, based neither on romantic fancies, 
nor on the anxiety to push a theory of ethnology to 
its last gasp, but on the facts of history and the hints 
of early literature. 



136 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Nor do we need to give up the Roman's splendid 
and generous eulogy. We have simply to take it 
out of the sphere of rhetoric and reduce it to prose.^ 
In the first place, polygamy was doubtless rare ; but 
it had no particular moral sentiment against it. 
Precisely because it was no great crime according to 
German ethics, there is little said of the matter at 
all. Ariovistus had two wives. In Scandinavia, 
unlimited concubinage was common enough ;2 but 
it was not a lawful polygamy, seeing that only the 
children of the free wife had any rights in the fam- 
ily. The habit held late. Even so pious and noble 
a man as Charlemagne had a court — and a personal 
record — which in this respect Avill not bear scrutiny. 
Economy, not morality or sentiment, decided the mat- 
ter. There was a total absence of sentiment in Ger- 
manic life ; but a householder respected the capable 
mistress of his home — because she was capable ; and he 
accorded her a certain supremacy, because only thus 
could she do her best work and bring about the most 
good for the family. She had, therefore, full sway in 
her own realm ; she could not easily brook a rival. 
Perhaps the best modern instance of an old German's 
point of view would be that of the second George 
of England, " Paladin George," and his devotion to 
his queen. She had been most emphatically ''the 
man of the house," and the king was in despair as he 

1 Part of it seems sober fact. "Marriages are strict, and no phase 
of their life is to be so highly praised. Alone almost of the barbarians, 
they are contented with a single wife, a few excepted, who, not for the 
sake of sensuality, but on account of their high rank, are sought several 
times in marriage." Germ. XVIII. 

2 Weinhold, A. L. 248 f. Grimm, R. A. 440. Later summaries indi- 
cate belief in polygamy among the old Germans : see v. Amira in Paul's 
Grdr. d. germ. Phil. II. 2, 143. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 

stood by her deathbed. Who does not remember his 
pathetic declaration that he would never marry again ? 
— "Non, j'aurai des maitresses." ^ 

The sanctity of the household, and in consequence 
the inviolable character of marriage, owed a good 
measure of their support to the old ceremony of 
ancestor-worship. It is not only Spencer and the 
ethnologists who insist on the wide importance of 
this cult; it is nearly, if not quite a settled matter 
in the court of scholarly opinion. Only a legitimate 
son, reasoned the German, can or will minister to 
his dead parents. To leave a son who should be 
head of the house, and therefore its priest, who 
would perform its rites according to the good old cus- 
tom, and train up his own children to the same 
belief and practice, was one of the foundations of 
family life. Household gods were no fiction in those 
days. Now with such a sanction for the family, 
with such necessity for a head, for strict gradations 
of birth, we can see how the iron weight of custom 
and religious tradition, and not the feeble breath of 
sentiment, inclined the scale in favor of German 
women. If other reasons are needed for taking in 
earnest the main of Tacitean eulogy, we may point 
again to the importance attached to noble ladies as 
hostages, — in the Waltharius legend, heroine as well 
as hero is hostage at the court of Attila, — or to the 
honor paid to daughters of the royal blood, as among 
the Goths. 

Again, there is the subjective side. The Germanic 

1 Bioroulf, 1932 ff., describes the good and the bad type of woman 
in the persons of two queens, Hygd and Thrytho. The former is mild, 
generons, gracious; the latter remorseless, cruel, and altogether un- 
womanly. 



138 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

woman stands out in history with a certain nohility 
and steadfastness of character. In the doubtful issues 
of battle — it is an enemy who records it — she pre- 
fers death to captivity. When Caracalla asked some 
German women whom he had taken captive, whether 
they preferred to be slaves or to be killed, they chose 
to die ; and when in spite of this they were sold into 
slavery, they all put themselves to death. At A quae 
Sextise the women died rather than go into captivity ; 
and the same is told of the Cimbrian women at Yer- 
cellse. They tried to make a bargain for their cap- 
tivity by which they could be slaves in temples and so 
preserve their chastity ; and when this was refused, 
they killed their children and themselves. Paul the 
Deacon tells an odd story how the daughters of a 
certain Lombard duke, captives among a strange race, 
took heroic measures to preserve their honor ; ^ we are 
glad to learn that these courageous damsels finally 
escaped and married, one the king of the Alamanni, 
the other a prince of the Bavarians. 

Divorces and second marriages among the Ger- 
mans were very rare. They were so frequent at 
Rome, however, that no barbarian custom could have 
seemed lax by comparison. It was the honorable 
work of the church, and that only after most des- 
perate struggles, such as the contest between Lothar 
II. and Pope Nicholas I., that marriage came to be 
regarded as indissoluble. Among the Germans, in- 
fidelity on the part of the wife met swift and ruthless 
punishment, often death. Boniface ^ mentions hang- 
ing, and being whipped to death by other women. 

1 IV. 37. They carried putrefying meat about their oayu persons, in 
order to disgust the ardent suitor. '^ Epist. 59. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 139 

Tacitus gives a vivid picture of the formal expulsion 
of an adulteress from her husband's home : " With 
shorn hair and stripped of her clothing she is thrust 
by her husband from his house, her relatives looking 
on, and so is driven with blow on blow through the 
whole village."^ But all this, of course, was only 
for women. The church has the credit of forcing 
law and sentiment to take cognizance of the hus- 
band's guilt as well. 

As regards that famous sanctum aliquid et pro- 
vidum^^ we may well believe that there was abundant 
reverence for the prophetic and sacred character of 
woman ; but it was a reverence based on religious tra- 
dition, and was at the farthest possible remove from 
mediseval or modern chivalry. We are hardly to 
think that the German attributed superior insight 
to woman as woman; the gods spoke through her. 
The Yeleda, whom Tacitus mentions, both in this 
passage and in the histories, was a typical wise 
woman, who had prophesied the defeat of the Roman 
legions. From the words of Tacitus it seems that she 
was finally captured and brought to Rome.^ She was 
chosen, along with the leader Civilis, to decide a 

1 Germ. XIX., prefaced by the general statement: "paucissima in 
tarn numerosa gente adulteria, quorum poena prsesens et maritis per- 
missa." 

2 Germ. VIII. Mention has been made of the services rendered 
by women in time of battle, — of the ardor inspired in the warrior at 
sight of his mother, wife, or daughter, and the thought of what captiv- 
ity would bring to them. Captivity thus becomes doubly feared. For 
the enemy to have noble women as hostages is a most efficient restraint 
upon the Germans. Then Tacitus adds: "Indeed, the German thinks 
there dwells in his women something holy and prophetic ; he neither 
spurns their advice nor neglects their oracular sayings." 

3 "Vidimus sub divo Vespasiano Veledam." See remarks of com- 
mentators. 



140 GERMANIC ORIGmS 

weighty question of state; but the messengers were 
not permitted " to see Yeleda face to face and speak 
to her. Sight of her was withheld in order that the 
re^'erence for her might increase. She stood upon a 
lofty tower, and one of her relatives, like a messenger 
of the gods, carried question and answer." ^ Costly 
gifts were sent to her; a trireme, for example, cap- 
tured from the Roman fleet.^ Even the Romans 
themselves sought to win her good graces, in order 
to influence her countrymen. Nor were all of her 
functions oracular and prophetic; she was made 
umpire in civil disputes.^ 

Such a position offered attractions to the ambitious 
young woman of Germany who had a soul above 
marriage and a talent for ecstatic shrewdness. In- 
deed, we afterwards hear of a certain system of edu- 
cation in these matters, and find Norwegians and 
Swedes sending their daughters to Finland, the chosen 
country of magic and sorcery ; ^ a historic basis for 
the young woman of our own day who goes to Ger- 
many. Nor is this so far-fetched as it may seem. 
Runes, incantations, the cunning interpretation of 
various carved or written symbols, formed a good 
part of the sibyl's business ; but to write and read 
in this way does not — under leave of Dogberry — 
"come by nature," and we may certainly think of a 
definite if not systematic instruction. It was doubt- 
less such a woman's duty to etch upon the warrior's 
sword-blade those potent runes of battle, or to undo 
the harm of hostile runes. A Norse maiden Avho has 
lost her brother offers to carve the runes on the 

1 Tac. Hist. IV. G5. 2 ibid. V. 22. s Grimm, D.M."^ 334. 

4 Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen, I. 105. 



HUSBAXD AND WIFE 141 

kevels, — pieces of wood, — if her father will make 
the memorial verse. ^ 

Moreover, as Grimm remarks,^ it is women who 
mediate between divine and human ; and Tacitus 
reminds us that such handling of holy business leads 
at last to godhead itself. " Veleda," he says, " a virgin 
of the tribe of Bructeri, Avas respected far and wide 
in accordance with the custom of the Germans, who 
regard many of their women as sibyls, and, with 
growing superstition, as goddesses." ^ In other words, 
the sibyl did not lose her power at death ; we shall 
see hereafter how " dead women " reveal to Scandi- 
navian dreamers the secrets of another world, or tell 
of a mortal's approaching death.* Chip and cut as 
we will from the testimony of the ancients, this rev- 
erence for women, living or dead, stands out a stub- 
born fact in the Germanic character. It is one of 
those nobler elements which shine all the more 
clearly in the dark world of their ignorance and 
ferocity. Jewish tradition knew only the prophet, 
the masculine angel, who carries God's will to a 
nation or to a man; but, as Grimm points out, with 
the German, " men are for deeds, and women are for 
wisdom." Our ancestors assigned the providum to 
women ; now it is a goddess, a Yalkyria, — now it is 
a mortal maiden of the Veleda pattern, a spdkona in 
Norse, the spae-iuife of our own Scottish tradition. 
It is such a woman who gathers up the past of Scan- 
dinavian myth in the Vqluspa^ the prophecy of the 

1 Ibid. I. 133 f . 2 B.MA 329. 

3 "Ea virgo nationis Bructerse late imperitabat : vetere apud Ger- 
manos more, quo plerasque feminarum fatidicas, et augescente super- 
stitione, arbitrantur deas." Hist. IV. 61. 

4 Atlamdl, 27. 



142 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

sibyl, and sings the death-song of Germanic heathen- 
dom. On the border world of spirits and living men 
hover the forms of supernatural women warning, 
helping or banning. When Drusus had crossed the 
Weser and drew near the Elbe, there met him a woman, 
in form and habit more than mortal, who warned 
liim 1 of his approaching end ; and to another dreaded 
invader appeared a rune-maiden, and cried "Back, 
Attila ! " to the Hunnish king.^ Such are the Valky- 
rias and the Swan-Maidens of our mythology ; and high- 
est phase of all, we find, as in Greek and Roman tradi- 
tion, the issues of death and life in women's hands. 
The Norns are governed by no god, be he Odin him- 
self ; and the vast underworld, a far older locality in 
myth than the Vikings' heaven of Valhalla, is ruled 
by the inexorable goddess, Hel. 

Some are ready to affirm that this power of woman 
in the other world only reflects the earlier stages of 
actual life, — that the Valkyrias, for example, are 
nothing more than sublimated Amazons.^ Instances 
are not far to seek of this actual fighting on the part 
of Germanic women. Tacitus, indeed, confines their 
activity to exhortations, the rallying of a disheartened 
army ; but when all this failed at Aquse Sextise, when 
the drum-beating and the incantations were of no 
avail, then the German women fought fiercely enough 
around their " wagon-burg." An old story of some 
Germanic raid into Rhsetia under the reign of Marcus 

1 In Latin. Suetonius, Claudius, I. 2 i> J/.4 334. 

3 So Holtzmann. Scbullerus, Zur Kritik des Valhollglaubens, Paul- 
Braune, Beitr. XII. 221 ff., esp. p. 225, makes Valkyrja= "Kampferin," 
Very different is Vigfusson's notion: "chosen alien-woman," i.e. con- 
cubine of a king, C. P. B. II. 474. The old etymology was "chooser 
of the slain." 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 143 

Aurelius, saj^s that after the fight bodies of armed 
women were found upon the battle-field, covered with 
wounds. Thomas Wright notes ^ that during the mid- 
dle ages Welsh women used to go with their men in 
hostile excursions across the English border ; and for 
Germanic women, Rochholz has collected ^ abundant 
material bearing on this matter of physical bravery. 
Occasionally women took their own parts in the trial 
by combat ; at least Weinhold quotes a curious case 
where a woman fights an accuser for her own cause. ^ 
Her weapon was a stone bound up in a veil or hood; 
while the man stood half buried in a hole and fought 
with a stick ; but this is not without a strong savor 
of burlesque. Probably the noblest figure in Scandi- 
navian poetry is Hervor, as she stands undaunted 
before the flaming tomb of her father and demands 
the dead man's SAvord. Here is evidently the later 
Norse ideal of high-born womanhood. 

It would be pleasant to suppress the final chapter 
of a story that begins so nobly ; but if truth be told, 
the last state of this sanctum et providum in Ger- 
manic women was its worst. Christianity banned 
the old sanctities and mysteries, and the prophetic 
maiden — " ea virgo^^ — grew little by little into a 
woman who clung to the disgraced divinities, had 
dealings Avith Satan, was guilty of the loAvest vices 
and the most disgraceful motives, did nothing but 
harm, caused storm, ruin, pestilence, and death. The 
much-abused " Dark Ages," however, went no further 
than bans and curses ; it was reserved for the daAvn 

1 Womankind in Western Europe, p. 5. 

2 Deutscher Glaube u. Branch, II. 289 ft. 

3 Deutsche Frauen, I. 205. 



144 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

of our modern epoch to muster in a last attack all the 
old mummeries and superstitions; and the sanctum 
et providum, taking lead of the rest, deluged the age 
with that mass of cruelty, blasphemy, and obscenity 
which we now include under the half-harmless name 
of witchcraft. 

So much for the general position of woman; we 
must now consider the household of which she was no 
unimportant member. The family, the kin, and so to 
the clan, is obvious progress of civilization, which at 
last reaches the point where private family life works 
to strengthen the state, and the state works to protect 
the family and guarantee individual rights. In early 
Germanic times the family, or rather the kin, is by 
far the most powerful factor in public as in private 
life. The family proper comprised the six relations 
of father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister ; * a 
wider circle began outside of this limit, and could be 
extended at will. These outer degrees of relationship 
were called " knees " : one man was kin to another in 
the " third knee,'' " fourth knee," and so on. The 
number seems to count, not from a common ancestor, 
but from his children, — the point where the collater- 
als begin ; so that the grandchildren, not the children, 
would stand "in the first knee." From the Anglo- 
Saxon cneow, "knee," was formed the word for a family 
or clan : cnSoris. Other names were mSg^ and (?z/?2, 
our " kin," whence " king " (cyning)^ or the " child of 
the tribe." It is on the basis of kin that we study 
Germanic institutions. A family, smaller or larger, 
held its members united by the strongest of bonds ; 

1 See further K. von Amira in Paul's Grdr. d. germ. Phil. II. 2. 137 f. 

2 Schmid, Ags. Gesetze, p. 5i8. 



HUSBAND AXD WIFE 145 

they made common front against an eneni}-, and kept 
peace among themselves. The word sib means both 
"peace " and " relationship." ^ To give this little 
senate laws, to govern his immediate family and do 
his duty as member of the larger family, was chief 
business of the Germanic freeman aside from his 
vocation of warrior and his avocation of huntsman. 
Every member of the family was subordinate to its 
head, not simply under his control, but at his mercy : 
he could punish, sell, and, in primitive times, kill.^ 
We must here as before clear our minds of modern 
sentiment, and keep in sight the rigid nature of 
household organization. We will begin at the foun- 
dation of the family, wedlock. 

The German wife was not wooed ; she was won, — 
and it is salutary to remember that "win" means first 
"to fight" and then "to get by fighting." In the 
time of Tacitus, a Germanic wife was probably bought 
with a price — not in our sense of buying wares, how- 
ever — in a transaction between father and bride- 
groom, which marked a distinct advance from the 
earlier and universal practice of stealing one's wife. 
Of course, this earlier method of finding a helpmeet, 
did not cease utterly and at once. For Roman affairs 

1" Gossip" has endured heavy fates. See also Old Saxon sibhia 
(Vilmar in Altert. p. 52) ; our words, kind, gentle ; and Grimm, R. A. 
288, where we are reminded that Old Norse lid meant both "help," 
" support," and " family." 

2 A little insight into this privilege and duty of a householder to 
punish— often by death — a guilty member of his family will set in 
clearer proportions the frequent domestic murders, as we should call 
them, of our old plays. Setting aside some obvious cases, we should 
thus understand the action of divers husbands and lovers, such as 
Philaster's act of "justice " in attempting to kill Arethusa, Philaster, 
Act IV.; Perigot's similar conduct towards Amoret, Faithful Shep- 
herdess, Act III.; and, of course, Othello, and the rest. 



146 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

we have the stock illustration of the Sabine women, 
a fine concentration of immemorial custom into a 
single act; and the Roman wedding kept a mock 
abduction as one of its features. The winning of 
Atalanta in the race is like those more strenuous 
proofs of muscle ^ which Gunther found necessary to 
win Brunhild in the Nibelungen Lay ; while actual 
survival is evident at peasant-weddings of the Conti- 
nent, where there is often a mock fight for possession 
of the bride, or a race between bride and bridegroom. 
So, at Frisian weddings, a sword is borne before the 
bride .^ Actual traces — not by any means mere sur- 
vivals — are found in Tacitean Germany. Arminius 
is said to have stolen his uncle's daughter and made 
her his wife. Perhaps the so-called indemnification 
of the daughter of a murdered man, which consisted 
in giving to her as husband one of the murderer's 
family, is only a later way of explaining the old sys- 
tem of wife-robbing. In Norse mythology, when 
the giant Thiassi is killed by a device of the gods, 
one of these is given as husband to the daughter of 
the victim. Severe laws were enacted against wife- 
robbing, a proof of its popularity ; and the substitu- 
tion of a price for armed force in marriage is a step 
in culture analogous to the composition of a murder 
by payment made to the victim's family instead of the 
primitive exposure to revenge, — the wergild. In fact, 
Waitz identifies the woman's price in marriage with 
her wergild itself. 

Admirable as this arrangement must have seemed, 

1 Wrestling, hurling the stone, etc. 

2 Grimm, R. A. 1G7. For exogamy in England, see Grant Allen, 
Anglo-Saxon Britain, p. 81 f. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 147 

immense as were its advantages over the raw and 
brutal act of older times, even this peaceful bargain 
may well have run counter here and there to the 
stirrings of a young Germanic heart. In an Icelandic 
saga, Helga takes with outward assent and obedience 
the husband whom her father gives her; but her 
heart remains constant to her lover, Gunnlaug Snake- 
Tongue .^ And we are led to ask the question, How 
far was the sentiment of love a factor in the Germanic 
marriage ? Such material as Grimm accumulates ^ by 
way of partial answer will not serve our purpose. 
The passages are nearly all mediaeval, and are rife 
with the first riches of chivalry and the worship of 
fair dames. We cannot possibly carry all that — a 
song, for example, from the Carmina Burana — back 
into Tacitean Germany. So that one is tempted to 
claim for Germanic life in its full extent the remark 
made by Grimm ^ in regard to Anglo-Saxon poetry, — 
that nobody thought of portraying the love of woman. 
Where men and women live in anything better than 
savagery, some gleams of sentiment must flash out. 
Moreover, it must be remembered that monks, who 
wrote down our old literature, would be shy of 
such material. The story of Walter and Hildegund 
has all the external characteristics of a runaway 
match, — if one were not constantly struggling with 
the sensation that Hildegund and the treasure stolen 
from Attila were somehow both of the same character 
in the regard of the hero. The loves of Siegfried and 
Kriemhilt are already touched slightly with the glitter 

1 Gunnlaugssaga, ed. Mogk. ^D.M. 330 f . ; III. 113 f . 

3 Preface to his edition of Andreas und Elene, p. xxv: "An dar- 
stellung der frauenliebe hat uherhaupt auch kein andrer angelsach- 
sischer dichter gedacht." 



148 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

of mediaeval tournaments and mediaeval chivalry. On 
the other hand, the passion of Helgi and his Valkyria 
Sigrun — a Norse background puts the actual date in 
some equality with far older Germanic material — is 
not without the charm that we are wont to couple 
with romantic love. But it is mixed with supernatural 
traits ; it is the old union of a peerless mortal warrior 
with an immortal maiden. Helgi fights lion-like in 
the heart of battle ; down hastens Sigrun, as the clash 
of spears grows shriller, hovers protecting over her 
warrior, and cries to him in joy of his victory. But 
his answer is not a lover's. In the second lay of 
Helgi, however, we meet the full wind of passion. ^ 
" Hogni hight a king ; his daughter was Sigrun. She 
was Valkyria and rode air and sea. . . . Sigrun rode 
to Helgi's ships." Then follows dialogue; then a 
battle, after which Sigrun, promised in royal assembly 
to a certain king, seeks Helgi, greets him and kisses 
him under helmet ; then the hero is moved to love 
the maiden. She says her father has promised her to 
another man ; now she has crossed his will, and woe 
must follow. Helgi consoles her : " Fear not Hogni's 
rage nor the hatred of his kinsmen. Thou shalt live 
with me, maiden, for thou art of noble birth." In the 
storm at sea, while Helgi is faring to battle, he looks 
aloft, and lo, nine Valkyrias riding, and Sigrun with 
them : and the storm is laid. A battle takes place, and 
all the kin of Sigrun are slain, save only Dagr, and he 
made his peace. And Sigrun learns of all the slaughter 
and weeps ; but Helgi comforts her : " Weep not, 

1 See Hildebrand, Edda, 163 ff. ; Simrock's Edda, translation, 150 ff. ; 
the Edda of the Brothers Grimm, ed. Hoffory, p. 34 ff.; Vigfusson- 
Powell, CP.JS.I. 140ff. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 149 

Sigrun, it was for thy sake. Kings cannot command 
their destiny." And she ^ answers : " Fain would I 
give life to them that are dead, — but rest in thine 
arms as well ! " Then comes the tragedy. Dagr 
obtains Odin's spear and revenges his father, and 
Helgi falls, and Dagr rides to Sigrun and tells her 
what is done. First she launches her bitter curses 
upon him for his falsehood and treachery ; and then 
she cries : ^ " Nevermore shall I sit happy at Sevafell, 
nor have joy of my life at morn or eventide; for 
nevermore shall I see the light flash on my lord's 
company, nor the war-steed with its gold bit bearing 
my king thither: nevermore shall I welcome the 
king home. ..." Then follows a fine bit of praise 
of Helgi. The hero is buried, a hill heaped over 
him; but the Viking-Paradise of Valhalla claims 
him, and there is a characteristic touch of description 
as he enters, spying his old enemy Hunding : " Hund- 
ing, do thou make ready a foot-bath and kindle a 
fire for each of us (the company of the king), and 
tie up the hounds and bait the horses. . . ." But in 
the evening Sigrun's maiden sees Helgi and a great 
retinue riding to his barrow or mound. And Helgi 
says, ghost-fashion, he is permitted to return to his 
barrow, but must ride the paths of air again before 
the dawn. And he calls on Sigrun to come forth to 
him. In vain the maid warns her, with Horatio's 
arguments of harm, not to go forth. She goes, and 
speaks : " I am as glad to meet thee as are the greedy 
hawks of Woden when they scent the slain, their 

1 With Simrock and Grimm. 

2 This is tlie translation of C.P.B. 1.141. A different rendering, 
Simrock, p. 157. 



150 GEHMANIC ORIGINS 

warm prey, or dew-spangled espy the brows of dawn. 
I will kiss thee, my dead king, ere thou cast off thy 
bloody mail-coat. Thy hair, my Helgi, is thick with 
rime ; thy whole body is drenched with gory dew ; 
thy hands are cold and dank. How shall I deliver 
thee from this, my lord ? " And Helgi answers : " It 
is thine own doing, Sigrun from Sevafell, that Helgi 
is drenched with deadly dew. Thou weepest cruel 
tears, thou gold-dight sun-bright lady of the south, 
before thou goest to sleep : every one of them falls 
bloody, dank, cold, chilly, fraught with sobs, upon 
my breast. . . . " ^ Then the passion of their old life 
gets hold upon them in the very tomb, and love is 
stronger than death. " Let us drink costly draughts," 
cries Helgi, " though we have lost both love and land I 
Let no man chant wailing dirges, though he see the 
wounds on my breast ! Now are maidens, royal 
ladies, shut up in the barrow^ with us dead men." 
Quoth Sigrun: "I have made thee a bed here, Helgi. 
. . . I shall sleep in thine arms, O king, as I should 
if thou wert yet alive. . . ." 

Aside from the fact that Bugge refers this story to a 
Greek origin, and sees in Helgi and his Sigrun a Norse 
version of the loves of Meleager and Atalanta,^ there 
is too much of the Viking splendor in the whole set- 
ting for any primitive relations. True, the awe of 
monkhood is not upon these wild verses, — perhaps 
our English lovers sang as boldly, and made lays fit 
to frighten the pious scribe, — but neither is the prim- 
itive simplicity of passion. It is a fierce, world- worn, 

1 A familiar touch, known to folk-lore and legend everywhere. 

2 Bugge, Studien, pp. (according to Norwegian ed.) 12 f., 166. See 
W. Grimm, Heldensage,'^ p. 355. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 151 

martial love, with a Valkyria for Juliet, and a grim 
warrior for Romeo. It is the glitter of the viking- 
life, with its dash and spoil and glimpses of foreign 
braveries in court and city ; and not even Helgi and 
Sigrun can give us the picture which we desire of 
old Germanic love. 

Aus alten Marchen winkt es 

Hervor mit weisser Hand, 
Da singt es und da klingt es 

Von einem Zauberland, — 

but the white hand beckons from a bower of romance, 
and the enchanted country lies this side of German 
forests. We must return to prose, and assume with 
safety that there followed upon the custom of bride- 
stealing the more peaceful marriage bargain, a step 
in civilization; and that in course of time, by the 
good offices of the church, women began to assert 
their likes and dislikes, choice began, sentiment — 
helped by what Dryasdusts call Mariolatry — un- 
folded, and only the dowry and marriage-settlement 
remained from the old conditions. For the first 
transition, we have a most edifying document in the 
shape of an edict issued by King Frotho of Denmark 
to the conquered Ruthenians,^ that in view of the 
greater stability and safety of marriages made on the 
basis of a definite bargain, people are not to wed 

1 Saxo Gramm., lib. 5, p. 48, apud J. Grimm, E.A.422 : " JHe quis 
uxorem nisi emptitiam duceret, vencdia siquidem connubia plus stabi- 
litatis habitura censebat, tutiorefn matrimonii fidem existimans, quod 
pretio firmarentur." One can fancy Polonius, a countryman of this 
Frotho, saying to Laertes by way of further advice on the conduct of 
life, "When thou shalt marry, take a receipt in full from thy father- 
in-law." 



152 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

unless they pay for the wife. These base respects of 
thrift are still common among the peasants of Europe. 
Tennyson's Northern Farmer probably has plenty of 
colleagues in actual life, and Weinhold quotes a 
peasant's saying, which is even more to the point: 
" It's not man that marries maid, but field marries field, 
— vineyard marries vineyard, — cattle marry cattle." ^ 
Only in old songs and legends, and rarely there, we 
hear of the maiden choosing her husband from a num- 
ber of suitors ; ^ and in one of these few cases it is a 
burlesque choice, a sort of raffle. Skathi, the giant- 
daughter, may choose one of the gods for husband, 
but is allowed to see nothing of them save their feet.^ 
We are on safer ground when we find Hjordis in the 
Volsungasaga choosing, at her father's bidding, be- 
tween two kings, which she will marry. " Choose," 
says the father, ^''for thou art a prudent woman.''' The 
transition to an unhampered choice was naturally 
slow. A cheerful milepost on the way is Cnut's law: * 
" Neither woman nor maid shall be forced to marry 
one that is disliked by her, nor shall she be sold for 
money, unless [the bridegroom] gives something of 
his own free will." But usually we find the notion 
of a bargain carried out quite aside from any fancies 
of the young woman. Another Anglo-Saxon law,^ 
an old one, ordains : " If one buys a maiden, let her 
be bought with the price, if it is a fair bargain (^gif hit 
unfdcne is) ; but if there is deceit, let him take her 
home again and get back the price he paid." The 

1 Deutsche Frauen,'^ I. 319. 2 jj. a. 421, note. 

3 Prose Edda, in Bragarq^ur. 

4 Schmid, p. 312, No. 74 : " Nemo nuhat fcemmam invitam.^' 

5 Of ^thelberht, Schmid, p. 8. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 153 

nature of this bargain seems to have been slightly 
misunderstood by Tacitus ; " the bride," he says,^ 
"brings no dower to her husband, but the husband 
makes a gift to his wife." The price was not paid to 
her ; but, at least in the oldest times, to her father or 
natural guardian ; in later times the price was turned 
into a gift (like the famous Morning-Gift) or settle- 
ment for the bride herself. To sum up, and give an 
answer to the question about love or commodity in 
primitive Germanic marriages, it seems reasonable to 
exclude almost totally the workings of sentiment. 
Doubtless the ancestral German would have approved 
most cordially the sentence of Bacon's "Essay on 
Love " : " They do best, who, if they cannot but 
admit love, yet make it keep quarter, and sever it 
wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life."^ 
All this concerns the marriage of free with free. 
If a free woman married below her rank, she came 
into a painful position, and must lose either her 
husband or her freedom. A curious custom of the 
Franks ordained that if a free woman was married 
against her will to an unfree man, she should go 
before the king and receive from him the offer of a 
sword or a spindle, — in this case, the signs of free- 
man and serf. If she chose the sword, she should 
then and there slay with it her unfree husband ; if 
she chose the spindle, she went with him into unfree- 
dom.3 This was a mild case ; in other laws there is 
less symbolic machinery and swifter, sharper justice. 

1 Germ. XVIII. 

2 Even the marriage of Joseph to the Virgin Mary is treated by the 
Old Saxon Heliand as a formal bargain ; he " buys " her. Cf. W. Wack- 
ernagel, XL Schr. I. 55, note. 

2 See Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 5 f. and references. 



154 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Thus the Lombard killed a serf who ventured to 
marry a free woman, and sold her into slavery if 

■ her life was spared; West-Goths and Burgundians 
scourged and burnt them both; while the Saxons 
punished an unequal marriage of any sort with death 
of man and wife.^ 

Just as the husband bought his wife, so ancient 
custom permitted him to sell her. When the Fri- 
sians were forced by the officious severity of Olen- 
nius to pay a tribute laid upon them by the Romans, 
but hitherto exacted only in part, they gave "first 
their cattle, then their land, lastly their wives and 
children." 2 The free Saxon had the right to sell 
wife and child ; ^ and as late as the thirteenth century 
a German could do the same thing in time of famine 

t and want. In Scandinavia the practice was common. 
Jacob Grimm,* explaining the Anglo-Saxon phrase 
fode freo'6uwehhe as applied to a wife, " the dear peace- 
weaver," shows that fcde meant originally "that 
which one may buy and sell," like German /ez'Z; then 
" property, what is valuable " ; then " dear." We 
need not make such frantic protest of horror. The 
Germans are fond of citing, at every possible turn, 
the public sale of a wife in Manchester, England, in 
1843 ; ^ while in the first decade of our century we 
find several cases on record. One wife "brought 
<£1 4s. and a bowl of punch " ; and another fetched 

1 Ibid. p. 6. 

2 Ann. IV. 72. Drusus had laid a light tax upon them, — tanned ox- 
hides for the use of the soldiers, — without specifying size or amount. 
Olennius required skins of the bison, — terga urormn, — or an equiva- 
lent. 

3 Weinhold, D. F. II. 12. 

4 Andreas vnd JElene, note, p. 143 (El. v. 88). 

5 Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. 1. 10. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 165 

twenty guineas, being " delivered in a halter to a 
person named Houseman." ^ By one of the oldest 
Anglo-Saxon laws, whoever enticed away a man's 
wife had to buy him another.^ The thing sounds 
very heathen ; but a well-known path of British law 
still leads an injured husband to much the same 
result.^ 

Generally, however, a matrimonial purchase was 
made for permanent investment. " Atli [Attila] 
gave for Gudi'un a mass of treasure, thirty men- 
servants and seven handmaidens." Theodoric the 
Great gave his niece Amalaberga to Hermanafrid, 
king of the Thuringians, and received in payment 
from the husband a number of " silver- white horses." * 
Occasionally we find excessively high prices quoted, 
as much as three hundred shillings among the Sax- 
ons, and among Alamannians and Lombards as high 
as four hundred, — no mean price when we reflect 
that one shilling represented the value of an ox at 
sixteen months.^ Moreover, it was all thrift, not 
gallantry. 

We will suppose the price paid down and the bride 
ready to be brought into her new home. Not alto- 
gether empty-handed did she leave her father's 
house .^ According to Tacitus, she brought even 
weapons to her husband; but the Roman's explana- 

1 Ashton, Daion of the Nineteenth Century in England, II. 65 ff. 

2 ^thelberht's Laws, 31, Schniid, p. 4: "If a freeman seduce the 
wife of a freeman, let him pay her wergild and buy another wife with 
his own money and bring her to the husband's home." 

3 See Thackeray's Ballads of Policeman X.: " Damages, Two Hun- 
dred Pound." 

4 Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 7. 

5 Ibid. The modern Kaffir gives from six to tliirty oxen for a wife. 
Lippert, Culturgesch. II. 78. ^ R. A. 429. 



156 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

tion is wholly fanciful. Then came the betrothal. 
Symbolic ceremonies, we may be sure, were not 
lacking ; but they differed for different races. The 
bride's hair was probably bound up, and it may be 
that keys of the house were hung, in sign of office, at 
her girdle.^ A boy walked before her, bearing a 
sword unsheathed, a custom which Miillenhoff refers 
to the worship of Freyr.^ The symbol of a ring, that 
genuine wed or pledge, can be traced far back into 
the middle ages, and was of course well known to the 
Romans ; but it cannot be proved to be of Germanic 
origin. Grimm suspects foreign influence.^ In the 
north, Thor's hammer was used to consecrate the 
bride, just as it consecrated the corpse for burial.* 
Thrym, the giant bridegroom, eager for the nuptials, 
cries out : — 

Bear in the hammer, bride to hallow, 
lay now MiQllnir ^ on maiden's knee, 
hallow us twain in hands of troth ! ® 

In fact, this famous but frustrated ceremony is so 
close a copy of old Scandinavian ways ^ that some 
of the details may be given. Thor's hammer has 
been stolen by Thrym, and cannot be had unless the 
gods give the robber Freyja to wife. A trick is tried. 
Thor himself is wrapt in the bride's veil of Freyja, 
puts on the famous Brising necklace, has a bunch of 
keys jingling at his girdle, has jewels on his breast, 

1 Wackernagel, work quoted, p. 7 f. 

^R. A. 167. 3 R^ A. 432, 178. 

4 Mannhardt, a little too eagerly, insists on its phallic significance. 

5 Name of Thor's hammer. 

6 Edda, Hildebrand, Thrym sk v. 30. 3 ff. 

7 So say Vigfusson and Powell, C. P. B. II. 472. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 157 

and a hood wrapt about his head, and, with Loki as 
bridesmaid, fares to Giant-Land. '' Up spake Thrym,^ 
the Giant lord : ' Stand up my Giants all, and strew 
the benches ; they are bringing me Freyja to wife.' 
. . . Early in the evening the guests gathered, 
and ale was served to the Giants. ... In came the 
Giant's aged sister (mother?) begging boldly for a 
bridal fee : ' Take the red rings off thine arm if thou 
wouldst win my love, my love and all my heart 
besides.' . . ." Then Thrym calls for the hammer, 
Thor lays hold of it and slays the giants all. — Touches 
of burlesque are not unwelcome in this description, 
for the old-fashioned ways are evidently given with 
great care. 

This actual marriage was surely an important 
ceremony. Waitz thinks ^ the affair was private and 
took place before the family alone. Tacitus does 
not commit himself; but Grimm insists that the 
ceremony was public, and collects later evidence in 
favor of his assertion.^ The clan and kin system 
demand the active co-operation of relatives ; and 
Anglo-Saxon laws show traces of this, even where 
the church has begun to regulate the whole affair.* 
Further ceremonies we may imagine. Thus, an 
oracle was doubtless consulted, and symbolic acts 
of cult were accomplished with reference to those 
divinities who presided over marriages, — Freyr and 
Freyja, one may guess. The good old ways were duly 
acknowledged by a mock fight, a race, or what not ; 
and by the tears and lamenting of the bride's nearer 

1 Translation, C. P. B. I. 179 f. 2 Verfassunggesch. I. 61. 
3 R. A. 433. Tacitus simply says : " Intersunt parentes et propinqui." 
Germ. XVIII. 4 Schmid, Ags. Ges. 390, 392. 



158 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

relatives, o'ercrowed, however, by loud exultation 
from friends of the party of the fust part. Songs 
and feasting could not have failed ; rude jokes were 
perhaps in season, and the gros rire which lingered 
about the occasion down to comparatively modern 
times. So much of the Germanic function seems to 
have resembled the Roman ceremonies that we feel 
it a thousand pities to find no chronicler of the words 
spoken by the northern pair at their betrothal. What 
was the German equivalent of the Roman bride's 
simple declaration : " Si tu G-aius, ego Graia " .^ — a 
piece of humility, by the by, which if generally 
known nowadays would distress honorable women 
not a few. It must be remembered that this formal 
engagement sufficed for the beginning of married 
life, and was so regarded long after Christianity had 
been introduced in Germanic lands. The actual 
ceremony in church took place later, and among the 
.Anglo-Saxons was not allowed at all for the marriage 
of a widow.^ 

A few particulars from later practice may be added 
to our guesses about the earlier affair. The wooing, 
or rather the bargain, was probably begun by father 
or friend, who, mostly along with the wooer, went on 
his errand with a great crowd of relatives and back- 
ers.2 During the negotiations, our young bride- 
groom-to-be sat silent, listened to the eloquent praise 
of his own excellent differences, and like Messrs. 
Dodson and Fogg under equally trying circum- 
stances, " looked as virtuous as possible." It is well 

1 R. A. 435. 

2 Weinhold, D. F. I. 317, reminds us that even god Freyr sent a mes- 
senger (see SJciniismal in the Edda) to woo for him. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 159 

known that this vicarious wooing is still practised in 
the very highest and in the very lowest classes of 
European society — the two sets of conservatives, 
princes and peasants. Again, the choice of a wife 
was not so limited as now. There were hardly any 
forbidden degrees of relationship. Mythology at 
least countenances even the marriage of brother and 
sister,! and in historical times one was at liberty 
to marry a stepmother, as witness Eadbald of Kent 
and ^thelbald of Wessex. The deceased wife's sis- 
ter, the brother's widow, one's own niece, — any one 
of these was a lawful mate. Only slowl}^ and with 
infinite pains could the church establish its salutary 
discipline and the doctrine of forbidden degrees. 

Early marriages, say both Csesar and Tacitus,^ were 
rare among the Germans. Rare, too, were second 
marriages, as we are told in the G-ermania.^ As for 
the first statement, we must remember what " early " 
would mean in a Roman's mouth ; for he was used to 
seeing wives of eleven or twelve years of age.* 
Again, in our oldest German and English chronicles 
we find records of very early nuptials. This contin- 
ued to modern times. Lord Herbert of Cherbury 
married at fifteen a wife of twenty-one ; in his Auto- 
biography, all he finds worthy of comment in the 
affair is "the disparity in years." However, Caesar 
and Tacitus were doubtless right in their general 
statement ; for it not only squares with our accounts 
of Germanic chastity, but agrees with that doctrine 

1 See Weinhold, D. F. I. 359 ff. ; LoJcasenna {Edda), 144 ff. ; and for 
details, E. Young, p. 126 ff. of the Anglo-Saxon Laiv Essays, by several 
hands, Boston, 1876. 

2 B. G. VI. 21 ; Germ. XX. 3 Cap. XIX. 
4 Jung, Lehen \ind Sitten d. Romer, I. 84 f. 



160 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

of political economy which makes marriages scarce 
in proportion to the difficulty of supporting families. 
Such difficulty was no stranger to the German. As 
regards the second marriage, the old custom of 
widow-sacrifice would give a grimly sufficient reason 
for the female side. When this custom ceased, it left 
a strong sentiment against the second marriage. The 
widow laid her keys, emblem of household rule, upon 
the corpse of her husband, and they went with him 
into the grave.^ So unusual, says Wackernagel, was 
the marriage of widows that it is used as tragical 
motif. 

Death was not the only means of breaking the 
marriage bond ; adultery — but, as was said, only on 
the side of the wife — destroyed the pact. The con- 
sequences of this crime have been in part defined ; ^ 
but the punishments savor of a ruthlessness which 
must have corresponded to a great horror of the of- 
fence. To kill her was a clear privilege of the hus- 
band, but such a punishment as to be trodden and 
suffocated in mud or slime was prescribed for the 
Burgundian false one. The Frisian could hang, 
burn, kill with sword, or even flay his adulterous 
wife. The Anglo-Saxon punishment, already quoted, 
is much milder and falls on the seducer, who must 
pay the woman's^ wergild and buy the husband 
another wife. Perhaps the mildness is only accident 
of omission ; for we are not told what became of the 
guilty wife. In later tradition we get some bloody 
and savage touches which may well preserve the 

^R.A. 176, 453 ; Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 31. 2 See p. 139, above, 
s Some interpret it to mean the man's own wergild. But see Scbmid. 
p. 5, note. 



HUSBAND AND WIFE 161 

practice of an older day. Thus, among other in- 
stances, the tragic ballads of Old Rohin of Portingale 
and Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard agree in 
making the injured husband inflict a cruel mutilation 
upon the wife. In the first : — 

Hee cutt the papps beside her brest, 

And bade her wish her will ; 
And he cut the eares beside her head, 

And bade her wish on still. 

In the second : — 

He cut her paps from off her brest ; 

Great pity it was to see 
That some drops of this ladle's heart's blood 

Ran trickling downe her knee. ^ 

This agrees well enough with the scene in Tacitus, 
an angry husband scourging the shorn and unclad 
offender from his home ; and it gives us by contrast 
better ability to appreciate the infinite despair and 
tenderness of Othello's words : — 

I that am cruel, am yet merciful ; 

I would not have thee linger in thy pain. 

1 Child, Ballads,2 III. 241, 245. 



162 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



CHAPTER VI 

THE FAMILY 

Hospitality and gifts — Responsibilities of the head of a family — 
Importance of kinship — Conflicting duties — Feud — Wergild, and 
other substitutes for feud — Paternal power — Exposure — Educa- 
tion of children — Names — Old age. 

Established in their home, the young couple took 
up a life rude enough to our eyes, but not without 
its virtues and even its amenities. Hospitality was 
instinctive in the German. To be sure, the laws and 
customs of modern life, as they touch upon personal 
property, are far removed from the simple notions of 
our forefathers ; and it is not to be denied that the idea 
of individual ownership has developed at the expense 
of that primitive generosity. So much may be 
granted; yet the effort to make this hospitality of 
the Germans a proof of their absolute savagery — one 
trait the more to support a parallel with modern Afri- 
cans — is by no means to be allowed.^ One is inclined 
to prefer the exaggerated praise of Tacitus.^ While 
we may justly place much of this generosity to the 
credit of an almost communal system of property, 

i Lippert's admirable book on Culturgeschichte goes too far iu this 
direction. The author sees all things in Africa, after the Malebranche 
fashion of his school. 

2 Germ. XXL See also Caesar B. G. VI. 23. 



THE FAMILY 163 

enough of the pure virtue is left to deserve our 
admiration. Savages do not pass laws to promote 
the magnanimous treatment of guests ; and the ordi- 
nances quoted by Grimm must rest on a very old 
foundation.! Thus we find a penalty imposed on the 
householder who may refuse shelter and fireside to 
the traveller; "shelter, and room by the fire, and 
water," — these were not to be denied under any 
pretext.2 Even if the guest had slain the brother of 
his host, — no matter ; he must come and go in 
safety ; ^ and what that meant in those days is evi- 
dent from the song of the two mill-maids who are 
grinding King Frodi's fortune, and in their descrip- 
tion of a universal peace can find no climax better 
than this : a time when " no man shall harm his neigh- 
bor . . . nor smite with whetted sword, yea, not 
though he find his brother^ s slater hound hefore him.^^ ^ 
Similar phrases recur constantly in mediseval poetry 
as type of the highest form of self-restraint and 
noble toleration. This hospitality was limited, of 
course, to transient guests ; foreigners who came into 
a country without friends and kin behind them, and 
made mien to stay, were in danger of unfreedom : a 
year and a day they might bide, and after that it 
was often slavery.^ But the wayfaring man who had 
definite objects in view was welcome to this bound- 
less hospitality. In later times we find the fixed 
custom that a guest might tarry up to the third day ; 
and Grimm quotes an Anglo-Saxon law: "two nights 
a guest, the third night one of the household."^ 

1 R. A. 399 f . 2 " Tectum et focum et aquam nemo deneget." 

3 R. A. 400. 4 c. P. B. 1. 185. 5 e. A. 399. 

6 See also Schmid, Ags. Ges. p. 286. 



164 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Interesting survivals of this doctrine of the three 
clays' grace occur in popular sayings and customs. 
German doggerel, more vigorous than elegant, de- 
clares : — 

Den ersten Tag ein Gast, 

den zweiten eine Last, 

den dritten stinkfc er f ast,i — 

which is astonishingly like Herrick : — 

Two dayes y'ave larded here ; a third, yee know, 
Makes guests and fish smell strong ; ^ — 

and both are matched by a Latin effusion, ^ which is 
perhaps the original. But Herrick puts such growl- 
ing rudeness into the mouth "of some rough groom"; 
and in conspicuous antithesis praises the fine old hos- 
pitalities of his friend in words that scent good cheer 
and spread the honest savors of an English kitchen. 
We may drav/ our conclusions of heredity, and fancy 
this knight with his " large ribbes of beef " an unmis- 
takable descendant of Chaucer's franklin, whose 

. . . table dormant in his halle alway 
Stood redy covered al the longe day. 

Further, we may think that this ruddy epicure him- 
self, in whose house " hit snewed ... of mete and 
drynke," did nothing more than keep green the 
laurels of Germanic hospitality. For let us listen to 
Tacitus : * " Banquets and hospitality find such favor 

1 Weinhold, Altnord. Lehen, p. 447. 

2 " A Panegerick to Sir Lewis Pemberton," in the Hesperides. 

3 Printed by Wright, ReUquix Antiquss, I. 91, and jDomesizc Man- 
ners, etc., p. 333. 

4 Germ. XXI. See Csesar B. G. VI. 23, whose testimony is in the 
same strain. 



THE FAMILY 165 

in no other nation. To turn anybody, no matter 
who he may be, from one's door, is held as a crime ; 
he is entertained according to the means of the host, 
who provides his best. When that is gone, the host 
becomes guide and companion to his guest, and to- 
gether they seek the hospitality of some other board, 
going uninvited into the first convenient house. Here 
it is the same thing; they are received with like 
friendliness. Neighbor and stranger are made equally 
welcome. To the parting guest, so custom ordains, 
is given whatever he happens to desire ; and there is 
equal freedom for the host to ask something of him." 
It seems a little ungracious to ascribe all this to the 
absence of any notions about individual property or 
the value of things. The astonishing hospitality of 
the Icelanders, who harbored absolute strangers an 
entire winter, who kept a table always ready for 
chance visitors whoever they might be, and whose 
very dogs were glad to see a guest walk in,^ — this 
is certainly a point or two above the African stand- 
ard, in kind as well as degree. 
NL The guest, however, had certain forms with which 
he must comply, if he would not run the risk of be- 
ing cut down like a thief. He must keep to the 
highway, and blow sufficiently upon his horn, that 
no mistakes might be made.^ ^ " If a far-come man, or 
a stranger, go out of the road through the forest, and 
do not cry out nor blow his horn, he is to be held as 
a thief." But if a man were lost, or could find no 
house, he was at liberty to cut standing corn for his 
horse, — one law says he may let the horse " tread 

1 Weinhold, D. F. II. 195. 2 Schmid, Ags. Ges. p. 28. 



166 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

into the corn with his fore-feet, and so eat," — and 
he might hew a little wood to mend his wagon. 

Of course, it must not be forgotten, that along 
with wider hospitality went narrower protection of 
law. What law did not require was ordained by use 
and tradition; and we may say of the Germanic 
treatment of guests what Tacitus remarks about one 
of the other virtues, — that " good custom avails more 
with this people than good laws elsewhere." ^ More- 
over, the family took the place of the state as regards 
responsibility for a stranger's doings. " If," runs an 
old Anglo-Saxon law, " if a man, in his own house, 
harbors a stranger three nights, merchant or other 
person, who has come over the mark (boundary), and 
feeds him with his meat, and [the stranger] then 
does evil to any one, let the host bring the guest to 
reckoning, or do justice for him."^ An insolent 
guest might be promptly beaten by his host.^ 

The custom of giving some present to the parting 
guest has been mentioned in the passage from Taci- 
tus, and forms the subject of a monograph by Jacob 
Grimm.* Of the articles which a German — prince 
or freeman — was wont to bestow on vassal, friend, 
or guest, Grimm names land, which was naturally 
the favor of chieftain or king, then food and drink, 
valuable animals, clothes, rings, and similar objects. 
Even in the middle ages money was little used for 
gifts ; and we still shrink from such a present where 
a definite object of equal value would arouse no scru- 
ple. The simplest gift was a glass of wine or mead ; ^ 

1 Germ. XIX. 2 Schmid, p. 14. 3 Grimm, R. A. 744. 

4 Ueber Schenken und Geben, Kl. Schr. IT. 173 ff. 

5 The double meaning of German schenken, " to pour out " and " to 
give," is thus explained by Grimm. 



THE FAMILY 167 

and often with the liquor, one gave the cup that held 
it. Of animals, horses were the favorite gift, as in 
our Beowulf^ and we remember that the price of a 
certain Germanic bride was paid in white horses. 
An Anglo-Saxon alliterating formula was mearas and 
madmas^ " horses and treasure." Dress was often a 
gift, as in the Mbelungen Lay, where it is coupled 
with horses.^ Golden arm-rings were the aristocratic 
present, — witness Hildebrand's last appeal for rec- 
onciliation with his son. Naturally, the course of 
conquest and settlement made land the gift which 
men prized the most ; on the border of two epochs, 
and uniting the nomadic and the agricultural stand- 
ard, may be mentioned the gift which Hygelac made 
to Eofor and Wulf when they had slain his enemy, 
" a hundred thousand of land, and twisted rings " ; ^ 
moreover, to Eofor he gave his own daughter. Gen- 
erosity could go no farther. 

These welcomes and gifts, these open doors and 
inviting tables of the old German, are not precisely 
in tune with that secret underground passage from 
the house to field or wood, which was provided for 
escape from the frequent raids and sieges of one's 
neighbors. The German's house was not only his 
castle, but it was very often a beleaguered castle, the 
refuge of his clan. For he was the protector and 
head of his house ; all its quarrels were his quarrels ; 
and when the family, or the meanest member of it, 
was wronged, he was its avenger. In the same way, 
he was responsible for wrongs done by his family; 
and thus all his relatives were bound with him in a 

1 iV. L. 28 : " Den vremden imd den kunden gab er ross und gewant." 

2 Beow. 2995 ff. 



168 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

common bond of responsibility. To inherit the fam- 
ily privileges was to inherit its duties. A law of 
Cnut is very instructive as marking the passage of 
the Germanic mind out of the stern old logic into a 
temper of equity. '' It was once the custom," says 
our wise king, " that the child which lay in cradle, 
even though it had tasted meat, was deemed by cove- 
tous men just as guilty as if it were possessed of its 
understanding (^gewittig'). But henceforth I earnestly 
forbid this, together with many other things which 
are loathsome to God." ^ A law of Ine had provided 
that if a man steal with the knowledge of his family, 
they should all go into bondage together.^ 

Thus the chief burden, as well as the chief glory, 
fell upon the head of the house. To be a father, or 
the eldest son of a widow, or the eldest of near kin 
in guardianship of minors, carried with the position 
responsibilities that now seem almost incredible. 
Such a person was executor of a code of vengeance 
which we do not know, simply because law and the 
administration of government have taken its place. 
" Revenge," said Bacon, " is a kind of wild justice " ; 
but it is more exact to say that justice is tamed and 
ordered revenge. The law now stands in relation to 
the murderer where once stood the head of the mur- 
dered man's family, who has thus deputed the state 
to perform his ancient duty.^ Despite a somewhat 
sophomoric note, this explanation agrees with the 
facts of the case. But it was a far intenser feeling 

1 Schmid, p. 312, 76, § 2. 2 ii,i(j. p. 24, 7, § 1. 

3 Lex Angl. et Wer. VI. (and Uhland, KL Schr. I. 218) : " Ad quem- 
cumque hereditas terrse pervenerit, ad ilium vestis bellica, id est lorica, 
et ultio proximi, et solutio leudis, debet pertinere." 



THE FAMILY 169 

that then filled the avenger of blood, than any abstract 
severities of our modern justice; for it knew no 
extenuating circumstances, and did not sunder one 
motive from another.^ It had the tremendous sanc- 
tions of religion. By the old belief, by the cult of 
family manes.,, an unappeased parent-soul hovered 
about the very hearthstone, a perturbed spirit only to 
be brought to rest by the grateful blood of the mur- 
derer offered by son or kinsman. So the sense of kin 
took just precedence of all human bonds ; and in the 
swan-song of Germanic mythology, the Vqluspa^ our 
sibyl can find no sign of impending doom so certain 
and disastrous as the breaking up of family ties: 
" Brother shall fight against brother, and they shall 
turn to murderers ; children of one parent shall bring 
shame upon their race. . . . Adultery shall flour- 
ish." 2 
y^ In this kindly soil of the family flourished such 
growth of sentiment as that rough life brought forth. 
Peace, good-will, the sense of honor, loyalty to friend 
and kinsman, brotherly affection, all were plants that 
found in the Germanic home that congenial warmth 
they needed for their earliest stages of growth. The 
double notion of blood-relationship and mutual peace 
is shown by a passage in our oldest English poem, 
Widsi^:— )( 

Hrothwulf and Hrothgar held the longest 
open concord, uncle and nephew, 
after they routed the race of Wicings, 
fell'd the pride of the power of In geld, 
hew'd down at Heorot the Heathobard's line.^ 

1 See Stubbs, Const. Hist. I. 81. 

2 Hildebrand, Edda, p. 12. Metaphors of the family, C.P.B. II. 473 ff. 

3 vv. 45-49. 



170 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Pretty, moreover, is the old " kenning," or meta- 
phor for " wife," — the weaver (or maker) of peace ; 
whether with Grimm we explain it as referring to the 
household union,i or because a marriage brought 
together two families and tended to set aside feuds.^ 
Situations akin to that of Rodrigue and Chim^ne in 
the Cid may well have burdened many Germanic 
lives, as witness an episode of the Beowulf? Frea- 
warn, daughter of the Danish Hrothgar, is married 
to Ingeld, son of a prince who has been slain in battle 
against Hrothgar's forces ; and the marriage is meant 
to put aside the necessity of blood-revenge. For a 
while Ingeld forgets his wrongs ; but an old warrior 
of his train * spurs him to vengeance, which is all the 
more easily suggested by the insolence of a young 
Danish noble, attendant upon his countrywoman and 
princess, who wears, in open sight of all, the sword 
once wielded by King Froda, the fallen father of 
Ingeld. Then oaths are broken, " the love of woman 
grows cooler in Ingeld after he has felt the waves of 
care," and blood must floAv for blood. 

Evidently it was a good thing to belong to some 
large clan, and an honorable thing to be its leader. 
Thus the power of King Hrothgar is described by the 
poet as based upon his increasing authority over kin 
and clan.^ 

Such speed of war was sent to Hrothgar, 

honor of battle, that all his kin 

obeyed him gladly, till grown were the youth, 

the crowd of clansmen. . . . 

1 Andreas und Elene, p. 144 f. 

2 See also such a name for a queen as fri'^u-sibh folca, " peace-kin 
of peoples," the relative who brings peace to clans. Beoio. 2017. 

3 2021 ff. See, for Danish parallels, Mullenhoff, Beovulf, p. 42 f. 

4 In Saxo's story it is the fierce Starcatherus. ^ Beoio. 64 ff. 



THE FAMILY 171 

That is, he was head of the family, and his kin were 
glad to acknowledge it and serve him. The youths 
springing up in his service are partly kinsmen, partly 
the " retainers " or comitatus, a peculiar Germanic 
institution which we shall presently consider. The 
value set upon the ties of a family is shown by cer- 
tain verses in the Old Saxon paraphrase of the gos- 
pels, the Heliand. It is the passage of St. Matthew 
which makes it profitable for us that one of our mem- 
bers should perish, and not that the whole body 
should be cast into hell. As Vilmar points out,^ the 
German laughed at scars, and found more sport than 
sorrow in the notion of mutilation. So the translator 
adds in explanation a far more terrible alternative, — 
separation from one's kin. ^'•Better to throw thy 
friend far from thee^ however close the sihhia, the 
kinship, may be," than to let him lead thee into sin. 

The family tie engendered the earliest notions of 
duty, whether to the living or to the dead ; and this 
sense of duty is the moral foundation of all Germanic 
history. Alive, the head of the house exacted obedi- 
ence and respect, fostered order and justice ; dead, he 
was the object of cult, grew mightier with lapse of 
time, and as a tribal god sanctioned wider and deeper 
laws of society. His fireplace was the primitive coun- 
cil chamber ; his grave was the primitive altar. Orig- 
inally the family or clan made a definite sphere or 
system of life ; outside of it the homeless man felt 
indeed that chaos had come again. The heaviest 
punishment was expulsion from the family ; ^ and 
banishment, the crown of sorrow for a German, is 

1 Work quoted, p. 57. Heliand, ed. Heyne, 1492 ff. 

2 See Dahn, Bausteine, II. 79 ff., on Family and State. 



1T2 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

a topic repeatedly touched upon in Anglo-Saxon 
poetry.^ The wretched victim of such a fate was 
cut off from all protection of law and order, and re- 
nounced the benefits of civilization. Thus at the 
other extreme of fortune from the proud head of a 
proud and powerful clan stood the clanless man, the 
exile, the outlaw, who had no protecting relative, no 
strong kinsman, no "gold-friend and lord." Those 
touching Anglo-Saxon lyrics. The Wanderer and The 
Seafarer^ mourn such a fate. 

The head of the narrower family in normal circum- 
stances was the father. The fatherhood of God ap- 
peals with peculiar force to the German. Thus, as it 
would seem, when the poet of Beoiuulf tells of the 
murder of Abel and of the doom of Cain, he treats the 
punishment as an act of vengeance undertaken by 
God for one of his human children. ^ Severe enough, 
too, seemed Cain's punishment. He was '' banished 
from his own kind," direst penalty short of death. 
With such notions of the power and privilege of 
fathers, the Aryan horror of parricide can be under- 
stood. Not without interest for mediseval sentiment 
on this theme is an account quoted by Kemble ^ 
from Barbazan's Fabliaux et Contes, as a parallel to 
Solomon's famous decision. Two princes — brothers 
— quarrel about their inheritance. The father's corpse 
is set before them, and it is announced that he who 
shall drive his spear furthest into the body is to 
be the heir. "The elder strikes home; but the 

1 Lingering in words like our "wretch," or German Elend {Elland). 

2 B^ow. 107 ff. The use of words like geiorxc " wreaked, avenged," 
and/asA^e, "feud," as applied to the crime, surely upholds this notion. 

3 Salomon and Saturn, p. 106. He thinks the source of the story is 
Cap, XLV. of the Gesta Romanorinn. 



THE FAMILY 173 

younger, detesting the impiety, prefers losing all 
share in the inheritance to mangling the corse : he is 
in consequence, by consent of all the barons, put in 
possession of the principality." In an age which 
was full of murder and sudden death, which saw no 
crime in the open killing of a man, this horror of 
parricide is significant enough. Such a deed struck at 
the very heart of social order and religious sanctions. 
To the simple mind of those days it seemed a good 
thing to rivet this family bond by gifts. If a young 
prince, says the poet of Beoivulf^ will only give rich 
gifts to his father's friends and kin, he may count in 
his old age upon comrades glad to help him and stand 
by him in stress of war.^ For such pains and benefits 
of kindred were not bandied about indiscriminately ; 
they were guarded with scrupulous care and kept at a 
proper value. Hence, too, we find in all older dialects 
a multiplicity of names to express relationship by 
blood ; and richer even than Germanic, are the Sla- 
vonic, Lithuanian, and Finnish, which, as Grimm has 
noted,2 longest kept up the primitive ways. When 
this genuine relationship failed, the German could 
enter upon an artificial one. It is true that adoption, 
as a means of increasing one's family, was hardly a 
Germanic custom ; ^ but the so-called blood-brother- 
hood Avas a special device of our ancestors, and popular 
enough. We know it best in its Scandinavian form. 
Two youths, often foster-brothers, cut each the palm of 

1 Beow. 20 ff. 2 (?. J). 5.3 p. 92 f. 

3 Dahn, Bausteine, II. 82 ff. Scherer sees a trace of adoption in 
Beow. 858 ff. The Danes praise Beowulf and say he would be a good 
king ; they wish Hrothgar, says Scherer, to adopt the hero. Zeitschrift 
f. oesterr. Gymnas. for 1869, p. 98. See also Paul's Grdr. d. germ. Phil. 
II. 2. 140. 



174 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the hand and let the blood run from it into a hollow 
in the ground; here their blood mingled while they 
grasped hands and swore brotherhood for life. More 
solemn ceremony, with intricate symbolism, consisted 
in their taking the oath as they kneeled under strips 
of turf.i Thus their blood became one, they were kin, 
and on each devolved the sacred duty of avenging the 
other ; such an artificial relative could even claim his 
share of the wergild. Sometimes the two held their 
goods in common. How vivid must have seemed to 
the German that passage of Genesis where the blood of 
a slain brother cries from the ground ! As usual, myth 
has absorbed the human relation : Odin and Loki are 
said once to have sworn brotherhood. Loki, detected 
mischief-maker, comes unbidden to a banquet of the 
gods, where '^ not one speaks a good word for him." 
The situation is dramatic .^ 

Loki. Thirsty, I, Loki, came to this hall ... to beg the 
Anses give me but one draught of the goodly mead. Why 
sit ye so silent, ye moody gods, speaking no word ? . . . 

Bragi. The Anses will never give thee seat or place at this 
banquet. . . . 

LoJci. Dost thou remember, Odin, how we two in days of old 
blended blood together V Thou sworest never to taste ale unless 
we drank together. 

Odin. Get up then, Widar, and let the Wolf's father [sc. 
Loki] sit down to the banquet, that Loki may not make mock 
of us here in Eager 's hall.^ 

1 See von Amira in Paul's Grdr. d. germ. Phil. II. 2, 146 f., Grimm, 
G. D. S.^ 96 f ., and Weinliold, Altriord. Lehen, p. 287 f. The general cus- 
tom was by no means specially Germanic, as Grimm's investigation 
shows : examples, R. A. 192 f. 

2 Translation is from the C. P. B. I. 102. Lokasenna, 6 ff., in Hilde- 
brand's Edda, p. 35 f. 

3 Grimm ( G. D. S."^ 97) reminds us of the same relation between 
Gunuar and Sigurd. 



THE FAMILY 175 

Blood-brotherhood is a very pretty word for our 
ears ; but in the brave old days it was no metaphor. 
The soul was thought to abide chiefly in the warm 
blood, as well as in the breath and the eyes. " Heart 
and eyes " were the main thing, as can be learned 
from many a later folk-song. We need not discuss 
the question of survivals from an age of universal 
cannibalism ; ^ there is no doubt that with our ances- 
tors, as with Mephistopheles and his brethren, blood 
was " ein ganz besondrer Saft," — though the signa- 
ture in one's blood is only an academic fancy. The 
old notion was to acquire the courage and spirit of 
a slain enemy by drinking his blood ; and vague sur- 
vivals of this are rife in Scandinavian tradition. 
Blood is the abode and source of life. Blood brings 
a life glow into the cheeks of the dead, and loosens 
the tongue of Teiresias in prophetic speech, as Odys- 
seus, in that unrivalled scene, stands by the trench 
filled with blood, and the pale shades flock about 
him, eager to drink. In the burning hall of Attila, 
Hagen and the Burgundian king w^ard off the effects 
of fearful heat by drinking the blood of the slain that 
lie about them, — here merely a touch of fantastic 
horror, quite forgetful of the original meaning. Blood 
mixed with honey we meet in Norse myth. Kvasir 
is the wisest of men. He is slain by the dwarfs Fialar 
and Galar, who mix his blood with honey ; whoever 
drinks of this becomes a poet or a seer. Eating the 
heart is a tradition deep-rooted in Germanic mythol- 
ogy, and later it was a characteristic of witches, who 
fell heir to most of the earlier habits of Asgard. It 

1 Cf. Lippert, Culturges. I. 61 f. Religion der europ. CuUurviilker, 
p. 48. ' 



176 GEKMANIC ORIGINS 

is needless to insist on modern survivals in proverb 
and tradition ; " blood," we say, " will tell," or it 
" runs thicker than water." 

The ties of blood being the most sacred known to 
the ancients, the one band of society, the beginning 
and chief sanction of religion, it was natural that any 
conflict of duty, any case of doubt which way the 
claim of blood should draw one, must have formed 
chief material for their tragedy. Known in some 
form all over the world, this tragic motive was de- 
veloped among our forefathers with a simple grandeur 
which stands alone in history. Laius and CEdipus as 
tragic victims rank no whit higher for grandeur of 
conception than Hildebrand and Hathubrand, or 
Ruedeger of Bechelaren in the Mbelungen Lay.^ The 
episode of Ruedeger outweighs a hundred tragedies. 
A vassal of the Hunnish king, he meets the Burgun- 
dian guests as they enter Attila's dominions, receives 
them in his own palace, and gives his daughter to 
the youngest of the brother-kings. When the great 
struggle in the burning hall grows almost hopeless 
for Kriemliild, she bids Ruedeger, as her husband's 
sworn man and vassal, to go into the hall and slay or 
bind her own brethren, of whom young Giselher is the 
elected son-in-law of Ruedeger. What shall he do ? 
" God help me," he cries ; " would that I were dead ! " 
Whatever he decides, his honor must be tainted, — 
to war against his own kin, or to desert his chieftain 
in his time of need ; the agony of doubt was never 

1 Many other examples will occur to the student of tragedy, ancient 
or modern, — Orestes, Hamlet, Rodrigue, and many more. The sacred 
duty of revenging one's kindred or friends was the soul of feud, and 
fills Aryan literature from Achilles down to Hamlet. 



THE FAMILY 177 

painted with such naked force. Heavy-hearted, he 
obeys his lord, and goes to a brave though unwel- 
come combat and to a welcome death. Further, 
there is a little episode in Beowulf^ — hardly an 
episode, one may say, but a mere hint, — where 
King Hrethel's oldest son, Herebeald, is killed by a 
purely accidental shot from the bow of the second 
son, Hsethcyn.i The old king pines away, not in our 
modern grief, but because of the relentless misery of 
irreconcilable relations with the second son, — the 
duty, as avenger, of killing him, and the paternal 
duty of protecting one's own offspring. For our 
forefathers, the tragedy of this situation needed no 
words : an allusion was enough. The famous saga 
of the Volsungs records still another case. Siggeir 
and Signy are man and wife ; but Siggeir has killed 
Signy's father and all her brothers except Sigmund. 
Signy, as a duty to her kin, does all she can to help 
her brother accomplish his revenge against her hus- 
band. At last the hall of Siggeir is set in flames, 
and there is no hope for him. Then Signy, in spite 
of all appeals from her brother, kisses him farewell 
and goes into the burning hall to die, as befits a 
Germanic wife, at the side of her husband. Exag- 
gerated, unnatural, void of all sweetness and light, 
this story is nevertheless full of a wild energy, like 
the times that brought it forth. 

This wild energy, the provocations and opportuni- 
ties of such a life, led, of course, to ceaseless feuds. 
Such a state of things became impossible ; a race of 
men cannot go on forever cutting their own throats, 
and the race itself seems to make from time to time 

1 B6OX0. 2438 ff. 



178 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

an almost individual effort at self-preservation, re- 
form, and progress. So came the great step of civili- 
zation which compounded a murder by payment of a 
definite price. Probably it began, as was only just, 
with cases of accidental killing or maiming. This 
wergild^ or man-price, indicates system, organization, 
and offers sure evidence of incipient political life. It 
was already known in the time of Tacitus ; and was 
reckoned in terms of flocks and herds. The sum was 
fixed according to the rank, birth, and office of the 
person killed; and was paid to those whose duty 
would otherwise compel them to take vengeance for 
the deed. The wergild for women varied ; ^ now it 
was the same as that of a man, now only half as 
much ; but for a pregnant woman the price rose very 
high.2 Kings generally stood quite above any such 
provisions, except in a few Anglo-Saxon laws. But 
let us hear what Tacitus has to say about the whole 
matter of revenge and composition for murder. ^' It 
is a duty," he says, " to take up as an inheritance the 
feuds of one's father or relatives. And yet these 
feuds are not proof against all settlement (nee im- 
placabiles duranf) ; even murder is compounded with 
the payment of a definite number of cattle or other 
animals, and the whole family receives the price. . . ." ^ 
We can see how eagerly kings would foster this check 
on unlimited feud ; and we are not surprised to note 
the prominent place given to the wergild in all 
systems of Germanic law. First of his secular laws 
stands King Edmund's decree in regard to murder 

1 Of course these are mainly mediseval distinctions, but seem of 
primitive origin. 

2 R. A. 404 f. 3 QQrm. XXI. 



THE FAMILY 179 

and the wergild ; let the murderer, of whatever rank 
(sy swd horen swd he sy), bear the vengeance that is 
due unless he can pay the full price within twelve 
months ; and if any of his relatives harbor or help him, 
they, too, are liable to the act of revenge.^ Even where 
a man has made himself hated far and wide by crimes 
of every sort, his murder must be compounded. 
Gregory of Tours tells this of one nicknamed Avus, 
who after manifold sins was killed in a quarrel by a 
servant of his adversary. The latter, however, was 
forced to pay proper wergild to the sons of the dead 
man.2 

In course of time, fines were set not simply for 
murder, but for every sort of wound; they were 
assessed, much in the fashion of our modern " dam- 
ages " for accident, in proportion to the importance 
of the bodily loss, — eye, hand, limb, or what not. 
The following law of ^thelberht marks progress 
indeed : " If one man, with his fist, strikes another 
upon the nose, [the fine is] three shillings."^ As to 
the price itself, there is great variation in different 
places. From a hundred "shillings" up to very- 
large sums, the price was fixed according to the rank 
of the slain, — freeman, noble, king's thane, and so 
on. The church had part in the system, and ecclesi- 
astics enjoyed a high wergild. But to define these 
values would be a task almost as useless as hopeless.* 

Feud, which this system was meant to lay aside, 
seems to have been a wide word. It included the 
strained relations between King Hrethel and his son, 

1 Schmid, Ags. Ges. p. 176. 2 Qreg. Tur. VII. 13. s Schmid, p. 6. 
4 See Schmid, Ags. Ges., Glossary, under Wergild ; Grimm, E. A. 272, 
289 ; Kemble, Saxons, I. 269 ff. 



180 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the murder of Abel, Grendel's direful raids upon the 
hall "Heort," and of course the hostility between two 
families or clans, the private shedding of blood for 
blood. There was utmost need to curb this ferocity 
of the Germanic temperament. Maurer records a case 
among the Norsemen, who kept longest and strongest 
the old traditions,, of children who would not play 
with a companion until he had at least killed some 
wild animal.^ The Scandinavian annals and legends 
are full of such stories, in contrast to the records of 
Slavonic races, who have always been averse to the 
feud. We open the Egihmga? and find that a certain 
man has two sons, one of whom, Egil, " is said to have 
begun to make verses in his third year, and in his 
seventh year killed a boy who had affronted him at a 
game of ball." Another boy of nine could boast that 
he had killed three men ; and Olaf Tryggvason at the 
same age took up a feud and avenged his foster-father. 
Instructive is the dialogue, ascribed to Egil, between 
the earl's daughter and the boy who is her partner at 
table .^ She despises such a youthful gallant : " Thou 
hast never given a warm meal to the wolf (i.e. slain 
men in battle). ..." And the boy answers : " I have 
walked with bloody brand and whistling spear, with 
the wound-bird following me. . . ." Such were the 
credentials of good society. To keep to the strict line 
of the feud, we find Grettir coming back to Iceland, 
after a long absence, to learn that his father is dead 
and his brother slain. " After he had visited his 
mother, the first errand was to his brother's baneman 

1 Bekehrung d. nonveg. Stiimme, 11. 172. 

2 See P. E. Miiller, Sagahibl I. 112. 

3 C. P. B. I. 373, whence the translation. 



THE FAMILY 181 

(murderer) whom he speedil}^ killed."^ So in Viga 
Styr's saga, Styr boasts that he has killed thirty-three 
men and never paid a penny of wergild. Later, he 
meets death at the hand of a youth whose father he 
had killed and to Avhom he contemptuously refused 
the price of composition.^ Earlier accounts, and from 
a different country, record the same deep-rooted Ger- 
manic love of the feud, of bloodshed and revenge. 
The Franks were so ferocious in their vengeance that 
they even infected their Roman neighbors and sub- 
jects.^ One story out of many may illustrate the 
Frankish spirit. A queen, who in life had been a 
monster of crime and oppression, lay on her death-bed. 
Before she gave up the ghost, however, she demanded 
companions in her death," in order that at her funeral 
others should be wept for besides herself." She called 
the king, and complaining that the medicine which 
had been given her by her physicians was the cause of 
her death, made him swear that, as soon as she died, 
these two doctors should be slain with the sword ; 
and it was done.* Sometimes the tragedy shades 
down into comedy. A Scandinavian saga tells of a 
man who was hit on the neck by an iron pan, thrown 
in a quarrel, and was slightly injured. Some years 
later, wooing a certain woman for his wife, he is re- 
jected by her relatives because he has never taken 
vengeance on him who hurled the pan.^ 

Sullenly and slowly feud yielded its rights to a 
system of fines, — punishment would have been 

1 Miiller, Sagahihl. I. 254. 2 ibid. I. 37 ff. 

3 Loebell, Gregor v. Tours, p. 83. 

4 Greg. Tur. V. 35. See also Loebell, work quoted, pp. 38, 41 ff. 
s Dahn, Bausteine, p. 104. 



182 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

impossible, — and did not come to an end, so far as 
Germany was concerned, until the close of the fif- 
teenth century .1 Where the feud would not yield to 
the payment of a price, men turned to a quasi-process 
of law deftly hidden in the guise of warfare. At first 
sight, trial by battle as a legal remedy looks absurd 
enough ; might is still right, as in the feud. We for- 
get, however, that the old feud left no avenue open 
for any sort of justice, and made the innocent suffer 
in shoals for a wrong, — perhaps a right, — done by 
one man who happened to be of their kin. Blood was 
the test. The punishment was not only inherited, as 
in our commandment, but collateral. Kemble ^ quotes 
the indignant reproach of Wiglaf to the thanes who 
have deserted their prince : every member of their 
clan, every relative, he says, shall pay for the coward- 
ice of these few men. For as the clan all shared in 
the tvergild, so they were exposed to the feud : " re- 
cipit," says Tacitus of the former, " universa domus." ^ 
Accident, moreover, was no excuse ; a mere bit of 
carelessness might lead to the death of a dozen inno- 
cent relatives of the innocent cause of feud. The 
famous myth of Balder shows this stern doctrine that 
accident, so far as the blood-feud is concerned, must 
be reckoned one with crime. Blind Hodhr is inno- 
cent, in our eyes, of his brother's death;* but the 

1 In the Diet of Worms, 1495. See Arnold, Deutsche Urzeit, p. 342. 
But the Fehde of German nobles in the middle ages was not the same 
thing as the older feud, the former being a sort of armed law-suit. For 
Anglo-Saxon feud and composition, see Kemble, Saxons, I. Chap. X. 

2 Saxons,'^ I. 235. Beoio. 2884 ff. 

3 Germ. XXI. 

4 Loki puts in his hand the fatal mistletoe twig, and bids him cast it 
in sport at Balder. 



THE FAMILY 183 

avenger, Wall, by the usual Germanic vow,^ neither 
washes himself nor combs his hair till he has killed 
Hodhr. Beda tells a story of an Anglo-Saxon war- 
rior who was left for dead upon the battle-field, came 
to life, and was captured by the enemy. Fearing 
death if he made himself known, he said he was a 
poor rustic ; but when the " count " who held him 
prisoner, amazed at certain miraculous circumstances, 
asked him who he really was, and promised him his 
life, the warrior confessed all. " Thou art worthy of 
of death," answers the king, " because all my brothers 
and relatives fell in that battle ; ^ nevertheless, for my 
vow's sake, I will not kill thee." 

When this wide swath of injustice is considered, 
the single case of a combatant in the trial by battle 
seems justice itself, — though trial by battle is only a 
circumscribed and legalized feud. Compare the Ice- 
landic holmgang^ or duel, with the wholesale murders 
of a feud like that described in the Nialssaga. Simi- 
larly, the other forms of ordeal seem absurd; not, 
however, if we regard them as the institution of men 
who began to see that right was better than might, 
and believed that God would defend the innocent 
and confound the guilty. J. Grimm, in his account ^ 
of the ordeal, assumes that only the nobler phase of 
it, trial by battle, was a frequent form of justice for 
the freeman ; though both ordeal and duel strike their 

1 So {Germ. XXXI.) among the Chatti, where the custom of letting 
beard and hair grow till one has killed his man, is not confined to 
special feuds, but is universal. After a great victory over the Romans, 
Civilis "laid aside his hair," — "barbcu^o voto . . . propexum rutila- 
tumque crinem . . . deposuit." Tac. Hist. IV. 61. 

2 See Bsedae Hist. Ecc, ed. Holder, IV. 22. " Quia omnes fratres et 
cognati mei in ilia sunt pugna intererati." ^ ^, ^. 908-937. 



184 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

roots deep into our heathen antiquity. Divination and 
lots were also regarded as an ordeal, and expressed the 
will of the gods. 

Trial by battle was known by the Germans of 
Tacitus, and was regarded as an appeal to higher 
powers. He mentions^ the strange, custom of decid- 
ing the event of battle by a duel fought between 
some captive of the enemy and a representative of 
the home army ; the result of this duel was accepted 
as an infallible sign of the greater issue. Champions, 
too, might fight for their respective armies, — like 
the Horatii and Curiatii. The Norse duel, mostly to 
decide a personal quarrel, was fought on a holm, or 
island, and hence called holmgdngr. The sagas tell 
of many a holmgang ; that of Gunnlaug Snake-Tongue 
and Hrafn, which resulted in the death of both, 
caused the Icelanders to abolish such duels as judi- 
cial process. An early case of combat for a lady's 
honor is mentioned by Paul the Deacon.^ Queen 
Gundiperga is accused of infidelity to her husband. 
One of her own slaves, named Carellus, receives 
permission from the king to defend the honor of 
Gundiperga against her accuser. The duel takes 
place before all the people, and the queen is vindi- 
cated. 

Such were the slow steps of rationalism as it won 
inch by inch the territory of barbarous instinct and 
superstitions. But the old customs died hard. No- 
bler souls long looked on all these compromises and 
compositions as degrading, and held blood to be far 
better than gold. "I will not carry my son in my 
purse ! " says an old Norseman as he spurns the prof- 

1 Germ. X. 2 jy. 47. 



THE FAMILY 185 



fered satisfaction. In the Nialssaga^ old Nial is told 
that he too, as well as his wife, may leave the burn- 
ing house where his sons have been surrounded by 
their enemies. " No," he answers, " I am an old man, 
unable to avenge my sons ; and I will not live in 
disgrace." 

As a feud involved the family, it is clear that 
something besides mere pride swelled the breast of 
a father who counted his row of stalwart sons : it was 
an assurance of present and future weal.^ No feud 
could be lightly undertaken against a powerful and 
numerous family^ Probably the average Germanic 
brood was no smaller than in barren Iceland; and 
there we read of such people as Hrut Herjolfson and 
his two wives, who had sixteen boys and ten girls. 
" When, in his old age, at the summer assembly of 
the people, he appeared surrounded by fourteen 
sturdy sons, he was the subject of numerous congrat- 
ulations," ^ — and no wonder. To lose one of these 
stalwart sons was a very serious thing for the Ger- 
manic father. 

Over wife and child, and every member of his 
family, bond or free, the German had, in theory, an 
absolute control. But religion and custom, what 
Tacitus calls the honi mores^ set up certain restric- 
tions which gradually hardened from tradition into 
law. To sell wife and child was a last resort of the 
Frisians.^ The Anglo-Saxon laws, and even the 
church, recognized a sort of right which parents had 
to sell their children into servitude, but endeavored 

i"Quauto maior af&nium numerus, tanto gratiosior senectus," 
Germ. XX. 

2 Weinhold, Altnord. Lehen, 259. 3 Xac. Ann. IV. 72. 



186 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

to curb the practice. ^ To slay outright an able- 
bodied member of one's household may have been 
lawful, but, except in the case of punishment or 
defence, was doubtless rarely exercised. There 
would be a wholesome fear of the anger that the 
spirit of such a slain relative would feel towards the 
murderer and his kin. At last, individual freedom 
of every sort yielded to the waxing authority of the 
king, and his laws limited the power of husband and 
father ; the state took up the old territory of kin and 
clan. All, however, was done by slow approaches. 

According to old Jutland laws, a man was per- 
mitted to strike wife and child, provided he did it 
with a staff or a rod, and broke no hones? Grimm 
reminds us of Siegfried's theory and practice : — 

So women should be managed, said Siegfried, man of main, 
That from pert and haughty sayings they ever should refrain ; 

and afterwards his wife bears testimony, as follows : — 

Much have I rued my error, said Kriemhild furthermore, 
Since for its sake my husband has beaten me full sore.^ 

Corporal chastisement, even of adult members of the 
household, was extremely common, lingered through 
the middle ages, and under the head of " Wife- 
Beating" is still a favorite topic with them that 
make or read the newspaper. " As late as the seven- 
teenth century in France," says Kemble,^ " it appears 
that it was usual to flog the valets, pages, and maids 
in noble houses." Mention is made of " a riot which 
arose in Paris from a woman's being whipped to death 

1 Kemble, Saxons, 1. 199. 2 j?. a. 450. 

3 N. L. 805, 837. 4 Saxons, I. 209. 



THE FAMILY 187 

by her mistress in August, 1651." Queen Elizabeth, 
we know, was wont to beat her maids of honor black 
and blue. Of course, the Germanic wife did not 
venture, any more than her children, to lift a hand 
against her husband. In Iceland, however, women 
achieved a remarkable degree of independence, and 
AYeinhold gives an instance where a wife, openly 
declaring that her husband had dared to whip her, 
thereupon dissolved the partnership and left him, 
taking all her fortune with her.^ On the part of the 
wife, direct and heavy insult aimed at her husband, 

— acute symptoms, we may say, of the common scold, 

— conspiracy against his life, and, above all, adultery, 
were just occasion for her immediate death ; only the 
husband was obliged to kill her openly, and to an- 
nounce his act immediately to his neighbors. It was 
mainly the efforts of the church which, little by little, 
secured to the wife rights of person, if not of prop- 
erty, nearly equal to those of her husband. 

In general, it is safe to say that able-bodied piersons 
were seldom killed through the exercise of paternal 
power. But there is no doubt whatever in regard 
to the custom of exposure,^ applied to the very 
old and the very young. Life was hard in those 
days, and daily bread was often uncertain ; strong 
hands must pay for well-fed bodies. The weak and 
sickly and old were more than superfluous ; they 
were a burden. Remorseless logic pointed to a 
speedy relief. Particularly infants, whether by rea- 
son of some deformity, or, as in the case of girls, 
because they were not wanted in the family, — little 

1 Weinhold, Altnord. Leben, p. 250. 

2 "Exposition," Gibbon calls it. 



188 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Florence Dombeys, — were killed or exposed or, in 
milder act, sold into slavery. Even the mere fact 
that a new-born child was a girl often sealed its fate ; 
male offspring counted so much more in the struggle 
for existence. Mild survival of this is the traditional 
law at Nestenbach, that the father of a new-born boy 
has the right to two wagon-loads of wood from the 
common forest, but only one load if the baby is a 
girl.^ Legend and poetry often veiled the old and 
barbarous and cruelly practical custom, as in the 
case where some dream or warning causes the parents 
to expose the new-born infant, and so avert a calam- 
ity which it is fated to bring upon the race. The 
poetry of all nations is full of this. A rich Icelander, 
Thorstein, just before the birth of his child, dreams 
that he rears in his house a beautiful swan. Two 
eagles come and fight fiercely for the swan, and at 
last fall, both of them, dead to the ground, and the 
swan sits sorrowful and mourns. Then came yet 
another bird, and with him Thorstein's swan flew 
away. A Norwegian skipper interprets Thorstein's 
dream in the obvious fashion ; and when the latter 
rides off to the assembly of the people, he tells his 
wife that if she gives birth to a girl, it is not to be 
reared, but exposed. The wife contrives that her 
little daughter shall find a home with one of her 
relatives; and Thorstein's caution proves, as usual, 
only a vain struggle against fate. His dream is ful- 
filled; for Hrafn and Gunnlaug, the eagles of the 
dream, fell in that holmgang already mentioned.^ 
Thorstein, though a rich man and able to rear a 
dozen children, excited by his action no more sur- 

1 R. A. 403. 2 Gunnlaugssaga Ormstungu, ed. Mogk. 



THE FAMILY 189 

prise than that which modern folk feel over some 
unusual piece of economy on the part of a wealthy 
neighbor.! 

When a Germanic child was born,^ it lay on the 
floor (ham er a golfi^ " the bairn is on the floor," that 
is, "is born") until the father decided whether it 
should be acknowledged as a member of his family, 
or whether it should be exposed. In the first case, 
he lifted it up, or caused some one else ^ to lift it up ; 
it was sprinkled with water, had a bit of honey 
smeared on its lips, and so became a human child, a 
member of the family and clan, no longer — save in 
such exceptional cases as a general famine — liable 
to exposure. This act of lifting up is synonymous 
with fatherhood itself ; and Saxo Grammaticus, 
speaking of a certain man's child, does not say 
"whom he had begotten," but "whom he had taken 
up," — quern sustulerat. Deformed children were 
not taken up, but promptly exposed, — in oldest times 
killed, — in the feeling that such lives were not worth 
living, quite aside from the burden entailed upon 
those who would support them. This exposing was 
the business of the father, although, as Grimm points 
out,^ the legends soften down the barbarity of the act 
by attributing it to those who have no direct author- 

1 It is needless to remind tlie reader, save in merest allusion, how 
universal was this custom of exposure among all the nations of old. 
Romulus and Remus, Q^^dipus, stories of the East, the flotsam and jetsam 
of literature drifting down the centuries and still claiming our tears in 
the sympathetic verse of Chaucer, — a hook would he needed to name 
them all. 

2 R. A. 455. 

3 The nurse ; hence, says Wackernagel Kl. Sclir. I. 12, the German 
Hehamme. Kluge, Etym. Diet., s.v. Cf. Danish iorderaoder, " earth- 
mother." ^R.A.^m. 



190 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

ity, like that family scapegoat, the stepmother. 
Girls, as we saw, were often unwelcome guests ; and 
a curious superstition was often fatal to twins, for 
these, men fabled, could not both be legitimate chil- 
dren. This superstition forms a basis for the mediae- 
val legend of Octavian?- The exposure itself took 
place mostly under a tree or in a rude boat that was 
given to the waves.^ There seems to have been a 
vague notion that if the gods had any destiny in 
store for the infant, they might see to its safety for 
themselves ; or else, the child passed for a sort of 
sacrifice. The feelings of the child were not con- 
sidered at all. Grimm quotes a passage from Gu- 
drun, where children are forbidden to cry and weep 
aloud, on penalty of being drowned. It is a rough 
shock to sentiment when we think that this old and 
hopeless piece of barbarism lies at the foundation of 
our most exquisite myths, — Lohengrin the swan- 
knight, Arthur the forest-foundling, and that mystic 
Scild who in the prelude of our national epic, Beoiuulf^ 
drifts in his boat, a child of destiny, to the shores of 
a kingless land. 

The right to expose a child ceased in ordinary 
cases if food of any sort, especially milk or honey ,^ 
had passed its lips. There is a legend of the mother 
of St. Liudger, which shows the old Frisian custom.^ 
She was to have been drowned immediately after her 
birth, because she was " only a girl." A neighbor 
woman, coming by and taking pity on the infant, put 

1 There are English versions, one from the fourteenth century. 

2 R. A. 459. 3 n. A. 457. 

4 Her name was Liafburg. The story is told in the Vita Liudgeri, 
quoted at some length by Richthofen, Friesische Rechtsgeschichte, 
II. 406 f. 



THE FAMILY 191 

some honey on the child's mouth. The honey was 
promptly swallowed, and in accordance with custom 
the baby was allowed to live. Tests were often prac- 
tised in the case of boys to see whether there was 
promise of a vigorous life. Thus even for the water 
baptism, if we may so style it, Holtzmann ^ takes the 
very practical view that it was really a trial of hardi- 
ness. If the boy stood the shock of immersion, he 
had a strong constitution. The old Vikings thrust 
a spear toward the child as it lay on the floor, and if 
the little fist clutched at the weapon, good : the child 
should live and be a man of his hands. The same 
motif has crept into a legend of the Lombards, and 
is told in all seriousness by Paul the Deacon, in his 
history of that race.^ Once upon a time, he tells us, 
a woman threw her seven little children into a pond, 
to let them drown there. It chanced that King 
Agelmund rode by the pond, and seeing to his aston- 
ishment the wretched infants, he stopped his horse 
and reached out towards them with his spear ; one of 
them grasped it. Agelmund, moved with pity and 
wonder, said the child would one day be a powerful 
man, ordered him taken from the pond, had him care- 
fully nursed and educated, and called him Lamissio.^ 
When Agelmund died, Lamissio was made king of 
the Lombards. Somewhat different was the test of 
hardiness where a poor freedman died and left several 
children. They were put together in a pit — this is 
not precisely comfortable reading — and were suffered 
to starve one by one to death : he who held out long- 

1 Germ. Alterth. p. 212. 2 j, 15, 

3 From the word lama, a pond, explains Paul. It is our word loam, 
slime. 



192 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

est was taken up in extremis and allowed to live on 
the score of his tough constitution.^ 

The cruel custom of exposure yielded but slowly 
to the pressure of civilization and the teachings of 
the church. As helpful as anything was the instinct 
of maternal pity and devotion and love, which 
counted more and more as the position of women 
was improved. Grimm ^ quotes from a Danish 
ballad, where a mother puts her baby in a chest, 
lays with it consecrated salt and candles, and goes to 
the water-side. 

Thither she goes along the strand 
And pushes the chest so far from land, 
Casts the chest so far from shore : 
" To Christ the Mighty I give thee o'er ; 
To the mighty Christ I surrender thee, 
For thou hast no longer a mother in me." 

Imperial laws took the merciful side. The Emperor 
Yalentinian issued an edict against what Gibbon 
calls the " exposition of new-born infants." ^ But 
nothing clings to life like an old and once universal 
custom. When the popular assembly of Iceland 
resolved to accept the Christian faith, the outvoted 
minority submitted to be baptized on condition that 
they might keep the right to expose their children, 
as well as the privilege of eating horse-flesh. Evi- 
dently the ceremony of naming a child, a sort of 
baptism, had much importance in the heathen ritual ; 
witness the sullen comment of Clovis, the Frank, 
when his child died within a week after its baptism 

1 R. A. 461. ^ R. A. 457, 459. 

3 Decline and Fall, Chap. XXV. 



THE FAMILY 193 

by Christian rites : " Had it been consecrated (^clic- 
tatuB) in the name of my gods, it would have lived ; 
but now because it was baptized in the name of 
your god, it could not live at all." ^ 

Elaborate was the ceremony of naming a Germanic 
infant; and with the naming went a gift. The 
young Norse hero wanders silent and nameless till 
he meets the Yalkyria Svava, in the forest, and she 
hails him and calls him Helgi. Then Helgi answers : 
"What gift wilt thou give me with this name of 
Helgi ? " Whereupon she tells him how he can find 
a wonderful sword.^ Simrock says^ that a present 
was demanded even when one in after life received 
a nickname. Woden unwittingly gives a sort of 
nickname to a tribe of men (" Langobardi "), — it 
is a Hera-like trick of his wife, Frea, — and so is 
forced to give them, along with the name, victory 
over their enemies. Another gift came by right to 
the Scandinavian child when it cut its first tooth ; 
and this custom also, thinks Jacob Grimm, rests 
upon old Germanic tradition. 

The name itself was not so distinct and individual 
an affair as it is now ; for the main thing then was to 
attach the new-born child to his proper clan and make 
him a member of that organization which meant so 
infinitely much for our ancestors. This name, which 
bound its owner to his family, was chosen with 
especial care. It will be remembered that the habit 
of fastening a general name on the descendants of 
one man, and then giving each individual a distin- 

1 Greg. Tur. II. 29, 31. 

2 Hildebrand, Edda, Helgakv. 11 6-8. Grimm, G. D. S:^ 108. 

3 Mythol. p. 595. 



194 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

guishing " Christian " name, was unknown to the 
Germans, and indeed begins to be a settled custom 
only with the twelfth century.^ Not additions to 
the family name, but variations of it, made the Ger- 
manic rule. Hildebrand names his son Hathubrand, 
— that is one sort of variation. Somewhat different 
are the cases where '' the mother was called Ada, the 
daughter Oda (Uota) ; the mother Adalhilt, the 
daughter Uodalhilt ; the mother Baba, the daughter 
Buoba." Still another variation meets us in a rhyme 
like Haukr and Gaukr.^ We have already seen 
the first of these systems of name-giving in the 
Tacitean divisions of the Germanic race, — the 
tribes Ingsevones, Istsevones, Irminones (for Her- 
minones), descended from three brothers ; in the 
gods ( W) Odin, Will, We ; and one could add a long 
list, — Thusnelda and Thumelicus, Vannius and 
Vangio,^ and so on. Patronymic names in -ing are 
of course very common in Anglo-Saxon. By their 
aid, and with the ending -ham or -tun we trace back 
many an English town to the head of a single 
family.* For the deeper question about these names, 
their meaning and purpose, Scherer^ has made the 
following general statement. The names that the 
primitive German gave to his boy or girl " were for 
the most part like the names of Catholic saints, 
who are given to the children as patrons and pro- 
tectors ; these German names betokened patterns of 
life, ideals, which must be followed and imitated." 
Often the name was a compound of two members; 

1 Weinhold, D. F. 96. 2 i)jid. 97. 

3 See for longer lists, Weiuhold, Altnord. Leben, p. 265 ff. 

4 See Kemble's valuable lists. Saxons, I. 459 ff. 6 G. D. L. 10 f. 



THE FAMILY 195 

and as in Aryan times, one of these members was 
often used alone as a pet or household name. Favor- 
ite compounds were such as Gerhard^ the spear-bold 
man,i or Gertricde (^Grer-dru^')^ "the spear-strong," 
applied to one of Woden's battle-maidens .^ " In 
general," says Scherer, " the names of men in the 
Germanic period expressed the qualities which make 
for success in the great battle of life, — wisdom, 
strength, courage, readiness Avith weapons, power, 
leadership, passionate and determined purpose. All 
pointed to struggle or conquest." Among the names 
of women, however, Scherer sees two sharply sun- 
dered groups. One set of names had as basis the 
qualities of peaceful life, love, faithfulness, good 
cheer, beauty, grace, reminding us of nymph and 
dryad, of the light mist upon lake or meadow. The 
other group had names of battle and warfare, like 
Briinhild, " she who fights in armor." "Whether the 
brilliant historian is right in assigning the respective 
origins of these groups to two distinct periods, one 
of which cherished peace as its ideal, the other de- 
lighting in war and bloodshed alone, is a question 
still open to debate. There can be no doubt, how- 
ever, that at the time now under consideration the 
warlike principle prevailed in overwhelming degree. 
" She sat at home and span" was the coveted epitaph 
of the Roman matron ; but the mother or wife of 
German warriors went with them to battle and once, 
perhaps, bore shield and weapon at their side. 

Mythology, too, as Miillenhoff points out, played 

1 The Danes in Beowulf call themselves Gdrdene, " Spear-Danes." 

2 For details, see reference above, and also Weinhold, Deutsche 
Frauen, p. 11 ff. 



196 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

its part in Germanic names ; ^ and not inactive was 
the influence of heroic legend. Just as the patriot of 
some decades ago named his son after one of the rev- 
olutionary heroes, so a Germanic lad might receive 
the name of a Siegfried, a Gunther, a Welant.^ 

The early life of the Germanic child was passed in 
the narrow range of his paternal household ; rich and 
poor alike grew up together, unclad and dirty, an 
ideal childhood.^ So lived the son of the freeman 
until the time when, in presence of the popular as- 
sembly, after judgment had been passed upon his fit- 
ness, he took spear and shield and became a member 
of the state. A somewhat romantic tale of Paul the 
Deacon, about Alboin (the ^Ifwine of our own 
poem, Widsid^ and his youthful bravery, asserts that 
Alboin, while yet a prince, in battle with the Gepidse, 
killed their king's son in single combat. The war- 
riors of Alboin thereupon begged his father, the king, 
that he would admit the youthful hero to the royal 
table. "No," answered the king; "you know our 
custom that a king's son may not sit at meat with his 
father till he has received gifts of arms from some 
other king." * This gift of arms, whether so intricate 
a ceremony as here, or the everyday occurrence of a 
German community, was the all-important moment of 
the freeman's life. For arms were the sign of his 
freedom. " They go about no business," declares 
Tacitus of his Germans, "either public or private, 

1 Zio' Runenlehre, p. 44 ff. 

2 Symons in Paul's Grdr. d. germ. Phil. II. I. 1, p. 10. 

3 "Nudi ac sordidi," Tac. Germ. XX. 

4 Paul. Diac. I. 23. What follows (24) is a strained account of Ger- 
manic hospitality. Young Alboin goes as guest to the king whose son 
he has slain, and asks the latter 's arms as gift. 



THE FAMILY 197 

unless armed. But no one is allowed to take arms to 
himself until the state (civitas) is satisfied that he 
knows how to use them. Then in the public assem- 
bly, either one of the princes, or the father, or a rela- 
tive, adorns him with shield and spear. That is with 
them the toga and the first honor of youth ; until 
this occasion he is reckoned of the household, but not 
of the state." ^ Later law and custom ordain that at 
seven years of age a boy is taken from the control 
of the women and begins his education among men. 
At eight, with many tribes, he had a wergild. To 
prove his fitness, says tradition, an apple and a bit of 
money were placed before him : if he grasped at the 
apple, he was not worth reckoning ; if at the money, 
he was worth half the wergild of a man.^ At ten 
years an Anglo-Saxon youth seems, under two codes 
of law, to have become free of his guardian,^ so far as 
the latter's hold on the former's property was con- 
cerned ; and among the West-Goths a youth of ten, 
if he fell sick, could dispose of his estate.* Other 
Anglo-Saxon laws fix twelve years for such responsi- 
bilities; and this is legal age in other places. At 
fifteen, others were thought ready to bear weapons, 
— an age which agrees better with our notions of 
fitness ; and eighteen, and even twenty-one, have 
judicial sanction. 

From such a time till old age reduced his strength, 
the freeman was active member of the state, bore 
arms, took part in council, had the duties of fighting 
and the privileges of idleness, and was thus distin- 
guished from the unfree. In education, says Tacitus, 

1 Tac. Germ. XIII. 2 r, a. 411. 

3 Ibid. 413. Schmid, p. 12. ^R.A.^14.. 



198 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

there was no distinction. A playmate in boyhood 
could be the slave of riper years. Weinhold thinks 
that boys were often sent to other households for 
purposes of general education, — mostly to a rela- 
tive ; 1 but this is only a guess. Certainly there 
was nothing in the nature of our modern schooling 
with book and pen ; a robust contempt for this busi- 
ness of monks and women held strong throughout 
the middle ages, and was doubtless based on a gen- 
uine old Germanic sentiment, — latent, of course, 
in the absence of an alphabet. But it was otherwise 
with the education of muscle, agility, courage. Look, 
for example, at the accomplishments of our Jarl in the 
Higsmdl? Gymnastics of some sort our forefathers 
undoubtedly practised ; witness their sword-dance. 
This was education and sport, task and theatre, com- 
bined.^ The young men of free rank carried out the 
dance and had charge of it; they were clad as in 
battle, naked to the waist, with sword, or framea^^ 
in the hand. Then they leaped or threw themselves 
about, among or under the quivering, flashing swords. 
Miillenhoff assumes ^ that this was done to a musical 
accompaniment; "from the start, Germans knew fife, 
horn, and probably a sort of drum." Something of 
the same sort, though performed in full armor, was 
the Pyrrhic dance of the Greeks, in which all motions 
and postures of combat were imitated, and the whole 

1 Deutsche Frauen, I. 105. 

2 See above, p. 62. Wackernagel {Kl. Schr. I. 14) refers to Seneca 
Epist. 37. 

3 Tac. Germ. XXIV. It is the subject of an admirable monograph 
by Miillenhoff, printed in the Festgaben fiir G. Homeyer, Berlin, 1871, 
p. Ill ff. 

4 A sort of spear, the national weapon. See below, p. 250. 

5 p. 117. 



THE FAMILY 199 

affair was made into a training-school for actual war- 
fare. There was a similar Italian dance. Our Ger- 
manic tongue made little difference between " play " 
or "dance," and "fight"; both were expressed by the 
word Ide^ of which our discredited " lark " or "larking " 
is lineal descendant. Among the many " kennings " 
for " battle," derivations of this lac are beloved meta- 
phors: "sword-lark," " warriors'-lark," "shield-lark"; 
or else the compound is with plega^ " play " : " spear- 
play," "sword-play," "linden-play" (sc, of the shield), 
and many more. 

Such an education might well lead up to a vigor- 
ous manhood and, by our reckoning, to a green old 
age. But the second childhood of a German had 
all the risks of his first ; exposure was as common a 
fate for the graybeard as for the infant. " Old age," 
cries Lear bitterly enough, "is unnecessary"; but 
the ancients came to this conclusion without any 
such cruel tuition as his. "The young tree," says 
the hero of a legend told by Saxo Grammaticus, 
"is to be nourished; the old tree should be hewn 
down";^ and the phrase is characteristic. For not 
as a gentle messenger, an " angel," not as the softly 
approaching genius with inverted torch, beckoning 
the soul, or " standing pensively, his hand lifted to 
his cheek," did death come to the German ; ^ it 
charged full upon him, a relentless warrior. The 
Germanic conception of death was neither the comely 
youth, twin-brother of sleep and son of night, as 
the Greeks represented him,^ nor yet the repulsive 

1 Arbor alenda recens ; vetus excidenda. 2 Grimm, D. M. 709. 

3 Lessing, Wie die Alien den Tod gebildet, Berlin, 1769, p. 5 f. Death 
carved to resemble an Amor, see p. 10 f . 



200 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

skeleton of our mediseval traditions ; ^ death, mostly 
personified by the Germans as '' Battle," or the like, 
seized each man and bore him away. "If Hild 
(Battle) shall take me," says Beowulf, thinking of 
his possible death. Germanic life was all struggle, 
stress, battle ; and death was only the hardest out of 
many buffets. All races, says Victor Hehn, in a 
certain stage of the development of reflection come 
to the notion that death is no great evil;^ and he 
quotes the famous story told by Herodotus about a 
Thracian tribe who wept when a man was born and 
rejoiced at the death which set him free from reach 
of human ills. Probably we pity those gray-haired 
victims of exposure more than they pitied themselves; 
and they could have echoed in all simplicity, so far 
as old age was concerned, the words of the Preacher 
who praised the dead that were already dead more 
than the living which were yet alive .^ We must be 
careful, however, not to slip any poetry into the other 
side of the account. The German did not philos- 
ophize very much; the stolid fashion of a peasant, 
face to face with death, gives us a better hint. It 
was not a sentiment that old and tired should die ; it 
was a custom. Still, a rough sentiment often moulds 
our habit, and those weary veterans of life may well 
have said with the Greek poet that old age is intoler- 
able and hated even by the gods ; while they were 
not modern enough to join Lear in his magnificent 
appeal for sympathy : " O heavens, if you do love old 
men, . . . if yourselves are old, . . . send down and 
take my part ! " 

- J. E. Wessely (Die Gestalt des Todes und des Teufels in der dar- 
stellenden Eunst, Leipzig, 1876) gives abundant details. 
2 Work quoted, p. 438. 3 Ecdesiastes, IV. 2. 



THE FAMILY 201 

The prime and best of life, so reckoned the ancients, 
lay for men in the period from twenty to fifty, and 
for women from fifteen to forty, — of course, a rough 
average. These particular figures apply to the West- 
Goths,^ but would doubtless hit the Germanic notion 
as a whole. Sign of one's abiding manhood was the 
power to mount and back a horse, swing sword, and 
walk without staff or other help.^ Three-score-and- 
ten is the biblical limit of strength; but as among 
the Romans, sixty years were enough to bow the 
Germanic frame. 

Now while these years of strength endured, it was 
good for the German to live ; he had no doubts about 
that. Life was sweet to him who had all powers 
of mind and body, and a fair share of good fortune. 
The primitive and irresistible logic of it is charmingly 
expressed in one of Chaucer's happiest bits of humor, 
where Arcite is thrown from his horse and mortally 
hurt just after the tournament in which he has won 
his peerless bride : — 

*' Why woldestow^ be deed," thise wommen crye, 
"And haddest gold ynowgh, and Emelye V 

But when the senses were dulled, strength waning, 
disease and pain getting upper hand, there came to 
the German, not our modern weariness of life, which 
is often found in very strapping young gentlemen, 
but a willingness to leave the useless abode, to pass 
into the next world, to try one's chances in that region 

^ R.A. 416. 

2 Ibid. The German laws required that one could walk in the com- 
mon highway " ungehabt und ungestabt." R. A. 96. Later, a woman's 
test of general ability was her power to walk to church. 

3 " Wouldst thou." See Cant. Tales {Knight's Tale), v. 2836 f. 



202 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

of spirits whose existence no one seriously doubted. 
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter of 
Germanic life from one of the older Scandinavians : ^ 
"I have slain this Tusk-gnasher, first of the fourth 
ten (i.e. he is the thirty-first I have slain). ... I 
have cut down thirty-five men as quarry for the 
black-feathered raven. I have got me a name for 
manslaying. May the fiends take me when I am no 
longer able to wield my sword ! Let men bear me 
into my barrow then ; the sooner the better." Another 
sings of old age : " I grope in blindness round the 
fire. There is a cloud on my eyes. This is the ill 
that sits upon the white fields of my brows. My gait 
is tottering. . . . The forest of my head is falling ; 
desire has failed me, and my hearing is dried up."^ 
Such a life had no redeeming features ; it was no 
hard matter to leave it. Moreover, we know the 
Germanic wish to die in some violent way, not to 
pine and dwindle into one's grave, — a wish that 
flames out in the wild " Death Song " of Faust, and 
hails him happiest who dies in the midst of victory 
or love : — 

O selig Der, dem er im Siegesglanze 

Die blut'gen Lorbeern um die Schlafe windet, 

Den er nach rasch durchr astern Tanze, 

In eines Madchens Armen findet ! 

Warriors in Scandinavia gashed themselves with 
Odin's spear, and so avoided that dreaded " death in 
the straw." ^ The G-autrekssaga tells of a lofty rock 

1 It is of the heathen period. Translation from Vigfusson and 
Powell's C. P. B. II. 70. 2 c. P. B. 11. 73. 

3 Of course, a common barbaric trait. See Ammian. Marc. 31, II. 22, 
for the sentiment of the Alans ; those who lived to old age, or died of 
sickness, were treated with contempt. 



THE FAMILY 203 

whence those who were weary of life were wont to 
cast themselves down ; a case is mentioned where 
father and mother, led by their children to the cliff, 
leaped "glad and joyful to Odin." ^ On the other 
hand, there was plenty of involuntary faring to Odin, 
— or to the mistress of the cheerless world. Says Ari 
the Icelander : " There was a great winter of famine 
in Iceland in the heathen days, at the time that King 
Harold Grayfell fell, when Earl Hakon took the rule 
in Norway. It was the worst of famines in Iceland. 
Men ate ravens and foxes, and much that was not 
meet for food was eaten, and some slew old folks and 
paupers, hurling them over the cliffs into the sea. . . . " ^ 
It is related that a formal motion was made and carried 
in the Icelandic assembly, that on account of the 
famine and cold, all the old, the sick, and the infirm 
should be abandoned to starvation.^ The ancient 
Prussians and Lithuanians killed their useless old 
people without scruple ; while worn-out servants, 
sickly children, beggars not " sturdy," and such per- 
sons, shared a similar fate. Certain tribes of the 
Gothic race killed their old and sick, — tliis in the 
sixth century.* Beda, in telling about the conver- 
sion of Sussex, mentions the poverty of the place, 
and the ignorance and superstition of the inhabitants, 
who in time of famine would flock to the shore of the 
sea, and, forty or fifty together, junctis misere manihus, 
leap into the waves.^ Survivals abound. Grimm 

1 i2. J . 486. 2 Vigf usson-Powell, C. P. B. II. 35. 3 j?. a. 487. 

4 Grimm, EL Sclir. II. 241 ; Procop. d. hell. Goth. II. 14. It is worth 
noting that "though relatives kindled the funeral-pile, a stranger was 
employed to give the death-wound." 

5 Bsed. Hist. Ecc. Gent. Angl. IV. 13. The custom is well established 
for the ancient Hindus, as well as for a host of modern barbarians ; it 
was doubtless a general Aryan habit. 



204 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

quotes an old English tradition of "the holy mawle, 
which they fancy hung behind the church door, which, 
when the father was seaventie, the son might fetch to 
knock the father in the head as effete and of no more 
use." Long after the " mawle " ceased to be used, 
the tradition remained.^ In poetry and legend we 
find the same sort of survival. A single example, 
perhaps a little strained and rhetorical, may be taken 
from the German WunderJiorn? A boy carries part 
of an old horse-blanket to his aged grandfather, who 
is kept in abject misery, shivering and starving in an 
outhouse. " Why the blanket ? " asks the father, 
meeting the boy. Then the boy answers : — 

I take the half, he said, 
Unto thy father's bed. 

The other half I keep 
For thee, when thou shalt lie 
Where now thy aged father 
Is thrust away to die. 

Against this treatment of the aged seems to stand 
in sharpest contradiction the well-known reverence 
for gray hairs and the wisdom that they brought, the 
piety and veneration for old age, which we find in 
all the writers of antiquity. Not only Nestor of the 
Homeric poems, but the sentiment lying behind words 
like presbyter^ or the Anglo-Saxon ealdor7nonn, or our 
epic phrase /r^6? and god^ a sort of hendiadys express- 
ing the fortitude and experience of mature years, — 
these are good witnesses. But there is no great con- 
tradiction. The latter sentiment applied originally 

1 Grimm, Kl. Schr. VII. 175, quotiDg W. J. Thorns in a work edited 
for the Camden Society, 1839. 2 Das vierte Gebot. 



THE FAMILY 205 

to a healthy, vigorous old age, the wisdom of saga- 
cious counsel still fortified by a sound body. What- 
ever, on the other hand, bore the visible mark of 
death, the palsied frame, the sightless face, was ab- 
horrent and unclean ; and this was what the heathen 
hastened to put out of sight. As the feeling of 
respect for old age in and for itself gained ground, 
the early prejudice grew weaker ; in this. Sir Henry 
Maine ^ sees one of the chief signs of advancing 
civilization. 

1 Early Law and Custom, p. 23. 



206 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



CHAPTER VII 

TRADE AND COMMERCE 

Household industries — The smith — Commerce — Exports — 
Amber — Myths relating to commerce and seafaring — Ships ^ 
Love of the sea — Money and bargains. 

Asking the free-born primitive German what trades 
he had, we feel sure that if he could " speak back," 
it would be with a choice array of primitive German 
abuse. He was a soldier, he. His women and his 
slaves carried on nearly all of his industries. Among 
these, weaving would take a prominent place ; for 
the Germans had known the art and practised it long 
before they came in contact with the south.^ That 
" white cloth " of divination, mentioned in the (xer- 
mania, upon which the priest cast the kevils and read 
the runes — if runes they were — was doubtless of 
home manufacture. Their linen they exported, and 
it fetched a good price ; while the dresses of Ger- 
man women were preferably of the same material.^ 
"Linen as popular garb," says Hehn, "is of northern 
(^.e. not Roman or oriental) origin." ^ In the Scan- 

1 Evidence of the making of woollen cloth is found in graves of 
the early bronze period in Scandinavia ; and towards the close (several 
hundred years before our era) of that age, linen makes its appearance. 
Kalund in Paul's Grdrs. II. 2. 210. 

2 Tac. Germ. XVII. 3 Work quoted, p. 149. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 207 

dinavian lands, linen served in the place of money. 
Of industries which are somewhat allied to weaving, 
and supply the family needs, we may mention soap- 
making, another old Germanic art. Leather tanned 
with the aid of bark gave shoes ; while the sinews 
of cattle and the fibre of the linden tree furnished 
cords and ropes. All this was household work, and 
so remained far into the middle ages. That reproach 
still clings to the trades of the tailor and the shoe- 
maker, and is due to the old association with 
labor done only by women or slaves. Earthenware 
must have been made,^ and came under the same 
category. 

But there was a craft well worthy of the freeman 
and one that lay close to the heart of Germanic life, 
— the craft of the smith, a noble art, held high by 
all warrior races. " Smith," of course, is the same as 
Latin faher ; and we remember that in the Higsmdl, 
one of the sons of Karl, the freeman, is named Smith, 
the artisan. " Smith " is the masculine pendant to 
luehhe^ the woman who weaves, later webster. Just 
as in Anglo-Saxon, a wife, by the kenning already 
quoted, was called weaver-of-peace, so the word 
" smith " was used to form compounds in the sense 
of "one who causes or makes." Thus we have "lore- 
smith " (Idrsmi^') for learned men, "laughter-smith" 
for him who makes laughter or fun, and " war-smith" 
(ivigsmi'6} for the warrior .^ This general meaning of 
fabe?^ or artisan was slightly broadened in Scandina- 
vian, and narrowed in Anglo-Saxon. In Old Norse, 
as Grimm reminds us,^ it meant not so much " work- 

1 Tac. Germ. V. 2 Bode, Kenningar i. d. ags. Dicht. p. 48. 

3 D. M. 453. 



208 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

man," as one skilled in the arts generally, particularly 
the master-builder. In Anglo-Saxon it refers to the 
worker in metals, while the still common " wright " 
(wyrhtd) was he who wrought in wood of all sorts, 
ship or wagon or house. ^ 

Like Vulcan of old, the Germanic smith found his 
way into mythology and cult. In England we know 
him as Way land the Smith ;2 an.d our oldest English 
lyric, the song, of the minstrel Deor, introduces him 
in its first verse. His legend or myth was a great 
Germanic favorite ; in the north it is elaborated into 
one of the most striking poems,^ and allusions to it 
are frequent even in the scanty wreckage from the 
literature of our forefathers. Various accounts made 
W^land grandson of a king and a mermaid, and son 
of a giant, — by no means a born thrall ; and his 
deeds are deeds of a god. The legends of Weland 
seem to have begun in Low German territory ; and 
when both Beowulf and Waldere, in ouV early epic, 
call their swords " Wayland'sv work," we know that 
this is praise indeed.* A later version of the Sieg- 
fried legend makes that splendid hero, the Germanic 
Achilles, learn the art of a smith.^ 

Manifold, even in that simple life, were the prod- 
ucts of this craft. Tools, to begin with, must be 

1 In Wright- Wiilker, Glossaries, Col. 272, the heading "Incipit de 
metallis " covers smi^ = faber, smi^'^e = officina ; while in Col. 112^ there 
is a list of Wrights. However, " Latomus " is stanioyrhta. 

2 His cave is pointed out in Berkshire. Scott's treatment of Way- 
land in Kenilworth is hardly fair, though that other smith, Henry Gow 
in The Fair Maid of Perth, has a more heroic role. 

3 Charmingly told in the translation of the Grimms (Berlin, 1815, 
1885), or in Vigfusson-Powell, C. P. B. 1. 169. 

4 Wiilker-Grein, Bihl. d. ags. Poesie; Beow. 455; Waldere, A. 2. 
See B. Symons in Paul's Grdr. II. 1. 60 f. 

6 Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 47. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 209 

made ; and with these tools were fashioned the rough 
instruments of farming life, the houses and their 
scant furniture, the wagon — such as that of the god- 
dess Nerthus, — and above all the ornaments, the 
drinking-horns, and the weapons.^ Of course with 
the passage from age of bronze to age of iron, the 
smith's art increased in its variety if not in its im- 
portance, and with iron, brass, silver, lead, and glass 
came into consideration.^ Probably, as is so often the 
case with conquering tribes, the Germans learned the 
finer shades of this craft from captives of a more civil- 
ized but less warlike race. The Celts are the most 
obvious teachers of manual training for the Germans, 
though Roman examples must be reckoned with. 
Warriors often made their own weapons;^ and as in 
modern days, some leader doubtless saw from time to 
time the chance to improve his warriors' weapons, 
and so introduced reforms. A recent African in- 
stance may be quoted; the chieftain of a certain 
tribe made a considerable change in the character 
and use of his people's favorite arm, and in conse- 
quence subjugated a number of neighbor tribes who 
depended on the older weapon. The forging of 
iron weapons became general for Germany in the 
times of the wandering ; but tradition and fair evi- 
dence^ would seem to make the beginnings of the 
industry far older than contact with Rome. Nomadic 
tribes have often been good weapon-smiths. In later 
times, the Vandals and the Lombards had high repu- 

1 Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 44 f. 2 Montelius, work quoted, p, 89. 

3 Ibid. p. 172. 

4 Tac. Germ. VI. : " Even iron is not abundant (he has mentioned 
the scarcity of gold and silver) , as may be gathered from the character 
of their weapons. Few use swords. ..." 



210 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

tations in this art. A Vandal king elevated to the 
rank of noble a smith who had especially distin- 
guished himself.^ The sharp spear-heads of the men 
who fought so bravely against Drusus and Germani- 
cus, and put Roman military skill to all its shifts, 
must have made plenty of work for the weapon- 
smith. The sword is the darling weapon of Ger- 
manic song, though it was seldom seen in the hands 
of the ordinar}^ warrior. It is not the early national 
weapon, like the short lance ; but what a wealth of 
affection is showered upon it by the later heroic 
poetry I It is called " the work of giants," " Way- 
land's work," "the heirloom"; runes were cut upon 
it ; it had will and passion ; mystery was about it. 
It had its pedigree of owners ; its fate seemed almost 
human. What, then, as time went on, and Germanic 
life came to be all warfare, — what of its maker? 
Was he not as well paid and as highly held as the 
Armstrongs or the Krupps of to-day ? 

Ornaments being so dear to the primitive German, 
the goldsmith was counted among the " noble " crafts- 
men. Of great interest to us is the so-called golden 
horn of Gallehus (Denmark), filched, alas, long ago 
from the Copenhagen museum, but represented there 
by an accurate copy in gilded silver. It dates from 
the fifth century ; and the runic inscription upon it 
shows linguistic forms (in early Norse) older than 
the Gothic. This inscription, the mark of the Ger- 
manic smith, runs as follows : '' I Hlegestr, son of 
Holte (or simply, of Holt), made the horn."^ Sev- 

1 Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 47. 

2 It is a Germanic verse, and reads: " Ek hlewagastir holtingar 
horua tawido." It is in the older runic letters. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 211 

eral other products of the goldsmith's industry have 
been found in Denmark with inscriptions of the same 
date as that of the golden horn. They surely justify 
our assumption that even the early Germans not 
only stole ornaments, but made them. The skill of 
Weland in making the most artistic ornaments, such 
as are detailed in his story, leads us to the same 
inference. 1 

Passing to the general esteem in which our early 
Germans held the smith, we find that when such a 
trade was plied by an unfree person, his wergild rose 
very high, the goldsmith's highest of all.^ In Anglo- 
Saxon laws the king's smith is mentioned as an im- 
portant person.^ When a gesitlicund man^ that is, 
one of the great persons of the kingdom, moves his 
residence, the laws of Ine allow him to take with him 
his reeves Qgerefan^ — socios suos)^ his smith, and his 
child's nurse. ^ We hear in another place of a special 
punishment for injury done to the hand "of the 
harper, the goldsmith, and the embroideress." ^ 

Trade, which has so often opened new countries to 
the civilized world, found early its way into Ger- 
many. True, the account of Caesar shows little of 
what we now call commerce ; traders, he says, are 

1 The splendid arms of the Cimbrians hi Italy, and especially the 
brazen bull which they carried about with them (Plutarch's Marius) , 
are hardly in point. There had been too many opportunities for plun- 
der and trade during their long migrations. But those " images of wild 
animals taken from the sacred groves," which Tacitus mentions {Hist. 
IV. 22) , are better evidence. 

2 Cf. T. Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 486, with references. 

3 Schmid, Ges. p. 2. 4 Schmid, p. 50. 

s Lex Anglor. et Tfe^'mor.tit. V. 20 ; see Thorpe's Lappenberg, Anglo- 
Saxon Kings, 1. 120, Bolin's ed. " Music and the smith's craft," says 
Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 49, with reference to Jubal and Tubal Cain, 
" are trhe oldest industries." 



212 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

admitted among the Germans, but it is mainly that 
the spoils of war may be disposed of rather than for 
any lust after imported articles. Especially is the 
importing of wine forbidden, because the Germans 
think they are made too soft and effeminate by 
its use.^ Moreover, the products of the spinning- 
wheel soon found their way into a profitable market. 
On the whole, however, such commerce as the Ger- 
man knew must have been of a fitful and fragmentary 
kind. Holtzmann says roundly that a band of rob- 
bers has no trade. Again, we know that the German 
hated cities ; and these are of course the result and 
prop of trade, the local fixing of a market. Still, 
traders went about among the German tribes ; and 
Baumstark reminds us ^ of the Germanic hospitality 
as likely to cover even these isolated merchants. 
They were probably half-breeds or freedmen. No 
freeborn German, we may conclude, ever stooped to 
trade; he fought for his living, although there was 
much incidental plunder. Tacitus tells us that when 
no war was near at hand, the adventurous young 
man took up distant and doubtful quarrels and found 
fight where he could, — - a sort of speculation a fonds 
perdus. Even the plunder of these ceaseless wars 
made a merchant desirable, and a sense of advantage 
prompted the German to accord certain rights to a 
foreign trader.^ Wine, — when not forbidden, as by 

1 Cses. B. G. IV. 2. This is said of the Suevians. The Ubii, another 
German tribe, who lived close to the Khine, admitted traders freely. 
IV. 3. Roman traders among the Germans are mentioned, e.g. Tac. 
Hist. TV. 15. 

2 Germ. p. 300. 

3 In later times, of course, the king protected merchants. See 
Alfred's laws, p. 34; " Einleitung," LXIV., and below, p. 288. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 213 

Caesar's Suevi, — ornaments of that flashy charac- 
ter, doubtless, which have always attracted primitive 
races, and such matters, were coveted property ; and 
it was occasionally good to procure them without 
fatiguing preliminaries with the legions. Baumstark 
breaks a lance, in his usual impetuous fashion, for 
the native German trader, apart from the warriors ; 
and insists that such home merchants bought of the 
Roman and sold to their remoter countrymen. Taci- 
tus expressly tells us that the interior tribes carry on 
commerce by barter ;i while the others use Roman 
money. We may feel sure that there was consider- 
able trade in salt, the oldest commodity traded from 
tribe to tribe. ^ 

Germanic exports were slaves, amber, skins, woven 
stuffs, chiefly linen, soap, goose-feathers, and proba- 
bly many other articles which had become essential 
to Roman luxury. The imports were not of a very 
solid character, for each Germanic household pro- 
vided its own necessities ; in early times iron and its 
finished products, chiefly weapons, may have made 
an exception, but a law of the empire wisely forbade 
the exporting of iron in any shape from Rome into 
Germany. With no cities to collect and divide labor, 
the German did considerable part of his own do- 
mestic trading at the religious festivals, when scat- 
tered members of a clan or confederation of tribes 
came together to worship a common deity. The fair 
or Messe of to-day represents the old combination of 
cult and trade, though the latter element alone sur- 
vives. 

1 " Permutatione mercium utantur." Germ. V. See Baumstark, 
p. 197. 

2 See Hehn's monograph, quoted above {Das Salz). 



214 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

For the trade with Rome, carried on by that class 
of half-breeds and nondescripts always found on the 
border between civilized and uncivilized lands, we 
may safely assume amber as the oldest and most im- 
portant staple.! The export of amber led to the first 
communications recorded between the shores of the 
Baltic and the civilized world about the Mediterra- 
nean ; 2 Greeks, Syrians, and Egyptians knew its use. 
To the Romans amber was first known as a product 
of the Baltic coast about the time that Drusus made 
his great campaign, a few years before the beginning 
of our era ; ^ and it soon became a very popular arti- 
cle in the Roman market. Used by rich and poor,* it 
was employed not only for charms and amulets, but 
was recommended by physicians as a potent remedy 
for disease. Indeed, cheap or " imitation " jewelry 
was made of it, and it furnished a good counterfeit 
of certain precious stones, like the topaz. In the 
time of Nero a Roman knight went to the source of 
supply, and brought back enough to cover the nets 
which surrounded the circus, — an enormous freight, 
with one piece weighing thirteen pounds alone.^ 

The Germans themselves were not blind to the 
merits of their chief export. Graves of scattered 
races dotted about the continent, often far from the 
bit of territory which produced the whole supply, 
testify to the love of our forefathers for ornaments 
and charms of amber. Tacitus, it is true, says that 
the people who gather what in their own tongue they 

1 Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 72. 2 gee above, p. 11. 

3 Miillenhoff, Deutsche Alterthumskunde, II. 31. 

4 Dahn, Bausteine, T. 20 f. 

5 Plin. Nat. Hist. XXXVII. 11, 2, quoted by Wackernagel, I. 76. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 215 

call glesum^ a word evidently connected with " glass," 
do not use it, but export it in the raw state. ^ This, 
however, does not exclude the use of it by neighbor- 
ing Germanic tribes. Valuable as this export seemed, 
there was one article which the Romans sent in ex- 
change to Germany, a shrewd bargain for the north, 
and worth a wilderness of amber, — the alphabet. The 
so-called runic alphabet, about which theories of the 
wildest possible nature have been advocated, is now 
generally admitted to have been introduced among 
German tribes about the end of the second century 
after Christ, and is simply the Roman system of let- 
ters, modified by the needs of cutting in stone or 
wood, and by the inevitable variation of imperfect 
and distant copies. ^ 

The Germans further e"xported an unsightly, but 
tough little breed of horses, not, of course, the wild 
race referred to above as a part of Germanic food, but 
such as were trained to the saddle, — that is to say, 
to military work ; " for nothing is held so shameful 
and effeminate among them as to use the saddle." ^ 
Moreover, a few articles were exported for the 
Roman table; such were the beets and turnips of 
which Tiberius was so fond.* 

All this trading, or nearly all of it, was naturally 
overland ; for from time immemorial there had been 
a trade-route from the Baltic to the south. Of traf- 

1 Germ. XLV. For the old paths of commerce from Germany to the 
south, see Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 75 f . 

2 See p. 468, below; and the standard work of L. F. A. Wimmer, Die 
Runenschrift, German trans, by Holthausen, 1887; also Sievers in 
Paul's Grdrs. I. 238 ff. 

3 Csesar B. G. IV. 2. 

4 Plin. Nat. Hist. XIX. 28, and Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. 1. 62. 



216 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

fie by water there is not so clear a record,^ but it 
reaches back into the realm of myth; and as the 
smith's art should properly begin with a Germanic 
Vulcan, so we look for our earliest seafarers to the 
myths of Sceaf, of Wade, and of Hilde. Leaving 
aside for the present all myth for myth's sake, we may 
point to the venerable form of Sceaf as representative 
of the seafaring instinct in our oldest ancestors, the 
people who lived along the German Ocean, and on 
both sides of the Cimbrian peninsula.^ Connected 
with this purely mythical and shadowy but enticing 
figure are the clearer-outlined forms of Scandinavian 
Freyr and that earlier Nerthus, goddess of plenty, 
whom Tacitus has drawn for us. Peace and plenty 
go with trade ; and we are sure enough that Freyr 
was the merchant-sailor's god, and gave him favoring 
winds. Of Ing, the founder of our Ingsevonic race, 
we have vague hints of a seafaring proclivity ; and 
the famous swimming-match of Beowulf and Breca, 
translated above, ^ is thought by Miillenhoff to be a 
myth of the northward progress of culture and trade 
in the figure of the cult-hero or god making his way 
through the frozen and unfriendly seas. But these 
are no new things ; the tradition of them reaches 
back into a dim antiquity. Likewise of primitive Ger- 
manic origin, thinks Symons,* is the widespread myth 
or legend of Hilde, full of the plunge of ocean bil- 
lows ; it found special welcome and cultivation in 
the Netherlands,^ and is the basis of the beautiful 
German epic Kudrun. Again, Wade,^ that is "the 

1 Ibid. p. 78 ff. 2 See above, p. 49. 3 p. 114. 

4 In Paul's Grdr. II. 1. 51 ff. 

5 There is allusion to one of its characters in our oldest English 
lyric, Deor. 6 Symons, as above, pp. 11, 55. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 217 

wader," originally doubtless a sea-monster of some 
sort, is the father of our smith Wayland, and is 
mentioned, along with his boat, by Chaucer.^ So 
thoroughly are all these myths and legends mingled 
with the sights and sounds of ocean, that we are jus- 
tified in thinking of the Ingsevones as a race of sea- 
farers from the most primitive times. One strong 
proof of this seafaring instinct is found in the burial 
of Germans in ship-like tombs, or in real boats, and in 
the universal belief in a spirit-land whither souls are 
ferried in some ghostly ship.^ 

Let us now turn from myth to history. As usual, 
the exaggeration of the former is offset by a most 
melancholy depreciation in the latter. Pliny and 
Tacitus tell us of the awkward canoes and the hol- 
lowed tree-trunks used along the northern coast of 
Germany .3 There is a dash of the picturesque in the 
following story of an eye-witness, the historian Vel- 
lejus Paterculus, who served with Tiberius in the 
German campaigns. The Roman army was en- 
camped upon the Elbe in the very heart of Germany. 
On one side rose the camp of Rome ; the opposite bank 
glittered with hostile arms, until the imperial ships 

1 Cant. Tales, v. 9299, in the Merchant's Tale : " Wades boot (boat) ." 
Mullenhoff in TIaupt's Zst. VI. 67 ff. comments on this and other men- 
tion of Wade. 

2 See below, p. 326. 

3 Holding, we must remember, thirty men or more apiece, and 
making head against the fleet of Rome. Germans also used captured 
Roman ships. Back, moreover, of all Roman influences, we find in the 
rock-pictures of the Scandinavian bronze-age, representations of boats, 
high in bow and stern, and meant for rowing. In the early iron age 
boats were built of admirable lines, and calculated for some thirty 
oars; we should prefer to trust a Northman's judgment of good boats 
rather than the opinion even of Admiral Pliny. See Kalund in Paul's 
Grdr. II. 2. 210 f . 



218 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

arrived. About this time an elderly German of fine 
appearance and, to judge from his arms, of high rank, 
took boat — a trough-like affair of hollowed wood — 
and rowed to the middle of the river, asking that he 
might be permitted to land and gaze upon the Csesar 
in all his state. Then follows a wealth of compli- 
ment for Tiberius; but as Vellejus was himself 
present, and as the scene must have been near the 
mouth of the Elbe, we may without great danger 
behold in the curious barbarian one of our own fore- 
fathers, or a near relative of them, and accept the 
picture as one among the very few authentic ancestral 
portraits from that time of which we can boast owner- 
ship. ^ From such a boat to the exquisite lines of the 
Viking ship now preserved at Christiania, and said to 
be over a thousand years old, is no leap of a decade or 
so. Still, we may be sure that these Germans of the 
coast kncAV in their way as much about boats as the 
Romans did ; and their rough canoes may have been 
seaworthy enough. The Chauci actually used them 
on plundering expeditions to the coasts of Gaul. In 
the third century our Saxons ^ suddenly appear as 
accomplished sailors, and their swift keels measure the 
ways of ocean in all directions, — witness the Saxon 
shore of Britain, and the long line of fortified points to 
guard the colony against a tireless foe. These Saxons 
are said to have learned the art of shipbuilding by 
the treachery of Carausius.^ Helm, too, insists that it 
was only when they had borrowed from neighboring 

1 Veil. II. 107. 

2 Also tribes from the Baltic, like the Heruli. Miillenhoff, Beovulf, 
p. 19. 

3 Lappenberg says he was of Germanic extraction. Anglo-Saxon 
Kings,'^ I. 57. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 219 

people the idea and use of sails that the Saxons were 
able to play their pirate parts ; but not quite so 
rapidly are sailors made. In the Grermania^^ Tacitus 
describes the Norsemen as ignorant of sails ; their boats 
are two-prowed, and are not arranged with permanent 
rows of oars. But as oars still remained a prominent 
feature of the Viking ships, so we are fain to think that 
even the sailless craft of our Saxon forefathers were 
at home on the high sea itself, and dared many a bit 
of piracy with nothing but stout hands to propel as 
well as man the boat. As time passes, these Saxons 
achieve a great reputation for their skill and ferocity 
upon the water. Sidonius Apollinaris describes them 
in a letter, as well as in one of his poems ; ^ they are 
perfectly at home upon the stormy sea, and govern 
their boats in a fashion evidently puzzling to the 
poet.3 

The booty won by these raids can hardly be called 
merchandise, but it made occasion, and even need, of 
later traffic. We know that the Scandinavian trade 
with Ireland began in and even before the Viking 
period ; the influence of Irish art is plainly seen in 
Norse ornamental work.* Even the Viking raids, 
that organized system of plunder pure and simple 
which attained its height about the tenth century, 
opened, like the crusades, a way for commerce. And 
let us particularly remember that this Viking instinct 
lay in the race ; its great success came with its great 
opportunity. The beginnings of it, however, are to 
be sought in those rudest possible forerunners of 

1 XLIV. 2 Both extracts in Zeuss, p. 490. 

3 " Hostis est omni hoste truculentior. Improvisus aggreditur, prae- 
visus elabitur. ... Si sequatur, intercepit; si fugiat, evadit." 

4 Montelius, work quoted, p. 136. 



220 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

modern Red Rovers, — the wretched boats burnt or 
otherwise hollowed from a tree-trunk, in which the 
indomitable Chauci faced a Roman fleet (whether 
these naked desperadoes were any more proedones^ — 
it is Pliny's word, — than the imperial visitors them- 
selves, is not at all certain), or the lintres, the light 
canoes assigned to the same neighborhood by 
Tacitus. 1 

Trade, as may be seen, ran fairly abreast of all this 
plundering, even on the unsatisfactory footing of 
stolen goods .^ There were profits large enough to 
tempt the daring trader; and does not commerce 
nearly always begin with its wares in one hand 
and a sword in the other ? It must have been a nice 
art in those old days to tell a pirate from a peaceful 
trader or visitor ; and the duty of the " strandward " 
at Hrothgar's chief harbor could have been no sine- 
cure. Striking is the picture of this coast-guard who 
rides along the headlands to watch the stretch of sea, 
and spying the boat of Beowulf, gallops down to 
meet him at the strand, shakes the long spear, and 
asks what has brought him and his vassals hither, 
peace or war : — 

What are ye, then, of armed men, 
mailed folk, who the foaming keel 
have urged thus over the ocean ways, 
over water-ridges the ringed prow ? ^ 

With the art of oar and sail went the knowledge 
of the pilot. Such a person guides Beowulf and his 

1 Ann. XL 18. 

2 When in B^ow. 57, certain treasures are called of feorioegum, 
"fetched from far," are we to infer a peaceful importation or mere 
plunder? ^ Beow.2^1 ft. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 221 

men upon their journey over the sea, and is called a 
lagucroeftig mon^ " one who knows the waters." With 
the opening of history we find our forefathers pos- 
sessed by a passion for voyage and ocean-adventure ; 
it fills their descendants of to-day; and we reason- 
ably infer it in those older ancestors of whom history 
is silent, and whose deeds waver doubtfully in the 
mist of legend and tradition. Die Nordsee ist erne 
Mordsee ; its first Germanic victim, "long-headed 
blond " or what not, has had no lack of followers.^ 

Lastly, we turn to those figures in which Germanic 
poetry has expressed its love of the sea, of sliip and 
storm and life upon the waves. As we read the early 
pages of Grein's collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry, 
how the monotony is broken when once the fiery 
singer of " Exodus " fairly comes in sight of the Red 
Sea ; and what wealth of image and trope to describe 
the triumph of that " hoary warrior," ocean, over the 
hosts of Pharaoh ! No more sympathetic picture has 
been drawn by an Anglo-Saxon poet than where the 
wanderer ^ in exile falls asleep at his oar and dreams 
again of his dead lord and the old hall and revelry 
and joy and gifts, — then wakes to look once more 
upon the waste of ocean, snow and hail falling all 
around him, and sea-birds dipping in the spray : — 

Him seems at soul that he sees his master, 
clips him and kisses and lays on his knee 
head and hand (as erewhile he used 
in days that are gone), of the gift-throne fain. 

1 Wackernagel {Kl. Schr. 185) remarks that practically all technical 
terms used by sailors are of Germanic origin, and that marine activity, 
even when shown by Celtic races, is due to Germanic beginnings. 

2 Poem of same name, Grein-Wiilker, Bibl. I. 285, 37 fe. 



222 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Then once more wakens the weary outlaw, 
sees before him fallow waves, 
plunge of sea-birds, spreading plumage, 
hoarfrost and snow with hail commingled. . . . 

So fares the man fated " to stir with hands the rime- 
cold sea." Yet another picture of the same sort 
greets us in the Seafarer. ^ These are descriptions ; 
let us look a moment at the poetical figures themxselves, 
the kennings for sea, ship, and sailor. For " sea " 
Bode counts twenty " literal " terms in Anglo-Saxon, 
and could add more. Of figurative terms we have 
such kennings as : the home of the whale, the realm 
of monsters, the sea-fowl's bath, the pathway of the 
whale, the swan-road, the sail-street, the beaker of 
the waves, the realm of billows, the water-fortress, 
the wave-roll, the salt-stream, — and that difficult 
word, gdrsecg. The frozen sea is called " waves' fet- 
ters." For " ship " we have the wave-stallion (we 
still say a ship rides at anchor), sea-horse, sea-swim- 
mer, wave-walker, surf-wood, the tarred board, the 
wave house, the curved prow, the ringed prow (on 
account of the ornaments of the bow). A sailor is 
called sea-rider, or guest of the waves, in addition to 
a number of literal terms. ^ These are Anglo-Saxon, 
but the life of the Scandinavian Vikings developed 
such simpler kennings into an ingenuity and obscurity 
which belong more to puzzles than to ordinary verse.^ 
Commerce nowadays implies an exchangeable 
medium and interest on capital. The latter, says 
Tacitus, was unknown to our Germans ; and out of 

1 Wulker-Grein, I. 290 ft. 

2 See Bode's dissertation on Kenningar in d. Ags. Dichtnng, 1886. 

3 Examples in Vigfusson-Powell, C. P. B. II. 457 ff. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 223 

this fact he makes great trumpetings for their virtue. 
The currency, he says, was in terms of flocks and 
herds ; ^ and we infer that a definite kind of animal — 
in Scandinavia it was the milch-cow — made a unit 
of value .2 Three one-year calves are there worth one 
cow, while a seven-year bull is worth two cows, and 
a stallion from four to ten years old equals one cow. 
" Three times eighty " pounds of sheep's wool were also 
worth one cow. So ran Scandinavian computation, 
though cloth or linen was often reckoned as standard 
of value. Milk and cheese have here and there 
passed for nioney.^ The Anglo-Saxon values of 
flocks are set forth in the laws ; * as " a sheep with its 
lamb is worth one shilling until fourteen days after 
Easter," or " the horn of an ox is worth ten pennies 
(jpoeninga)^ In the seventh century, horses were 
used as standard of value, and fines levied in corre- 
sponding terms.^ But actual money in the shape of 
Roman coins was known even among the Germans of 
Tacitus. Probably to prevent the use of counterfeit 
coin in their trade,^ Germans, as Tacitus narrates, 
preferred old Roman coins of the Republic, many of 
which had serrated edges and could not be clipped ; 
silver, moreover, tliey preferred to gold. All this 
is evidence of bargain and sale, as well as mere ex- 
change. Among the more important commercial 
transactions, we may safely reckon the sale of real 
estate, a species of trade which, in whatever form and 

1 Germ. XXI. 2 yon Amira in Paul's Grdr. II. 2, 154. 

3 Rochholz, Deutscher Glaube und Branch, 1. 12. 

4 Schmid, p. 48, §§ 55, 58, 59. 

6 Otto I. " condemnavit Everhardum centum talentis sestimatione 
equorum." iJ.A586f. 

6 Wackernagel, Kl. Schr. I. 64 ; Germ. V. 



224 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

frequency, must have been familiar to the ancient Ger- 
mans. This we may fairly infer from the symbolism 
in later transactions of the sort. A stick or branch 
from the growing timber, a piece of the actual turf 
or sod, a blade of grass, were handed in presence of 
witnesses to the new possessor.^ The cleverness and 
presence of mind of William the Conqueror are 
nowhere better seen than in the jest with which he 
rose from his fall on touching English ground, with a 
handful of earth as symbol that he took possession of 
the realm. This appealed to the men whose Scandi- 
navian blood still flowed in comparative purity. 

Of regular Germanic professions there can be even 
less record than of trade. The healing art was largely 
bound up with religious rites, as the charms and 
incantations testify ; ^ but there was the beginning of 
a science in the selection of herbs and simples. The 
confusion of both methods may be seen in such a 
collection as the Rev. Mr. Cockayne's Leechdoms, 
Wbrtcunning, and Starcraft of Early England.^ 
Women had much to do with these things ; and the 
sibyl was no doubt invoked for aid in case of disease 
or hurt. It is curious enough that painful attacks of 
gout or rheumatism were attributed to the arrows of 
the "hags," the mighty women who course the sky, 
and send their shafts at the unwary mortal.* This for 
the matter of ordinary medicine ; but so far as surgery 
was concerned, Weinhold^ is of opinion that an age of 
constant warfare and battles would attain considerable 

1 R. A. 112 ff. 2 See below, p. 423. 

8 Master of the Rolls Series, London, 1864-1866. 
4 See below, p. 372. The Germans still call such a twinge Hexen- 
schuss. 5 Altnord. Leben, 387. 



TRADE AND COMMERCE 225 

skill in the treatment of wounds, the art of amputa- 
tion, and kindred matters. As for other professions, 
the schoolmaster was emphatically " abroad," and the 
lawyer was chieftain or priest.^ 

1 For the monopoly of legal lore by the Indian priests, see Sir H. 
Maine, Early Law and Custom, p. 46. 



226 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE WARRIOR 

Military service of two kinds — War the chief business of 
Germanic life — Courage — Types of the warrior — Cowardice — 
Germanic weapons — Armor — Cavalry — Importance of the in- 
fantry — Tactics of the army — The onset — Second kind of 
military service — The comitatus — Its meaning in Germanic life 
and history — Age at which the German took up arms. 

Unquestioned and absolute lord of his household, 
the free German had well-defined duties towards the 
state. These duties were military and civil ; and, as 
we may well imagine, the military were of chief im- 
portance. In Anglo-Saxon times, both varieties are 
represented by the three obligations laid upon every 
free citizen (thane) : to repair the burg or fortified 
place, to mend the bridges, and to serve in the militia.^ 
Military service, obligatory upon every Germanic cit- 
izen, called him in time of need to take his place in 
the general army, which was simply "the folk in 
arms." ^ A second sort of military service was volun- 
tary ; the free man fought abroad under foreign 
princes or wherever war could be found. But service 
in the main army was a very frequent matter, calling 
for and developing the supreme Germanic virtue, — 

1 See, among other cases, Schmid, p. 224 (^thelr. V. 2G). 

2 Waitz, I. 402. 



THE WARRIOR 227 

a virtue that was born in the freeman, and made 
strong in him by every possible device of example 
and training. In fact, the whole education of a 
Germanic youth was a lesson de contemnenda morte.^ 
Now Rome was a military state and was founded 
upon the idea of a folk in arms ; but the desperate 
courage of the German warrior made an almost 
uncanny impression upon the legions. As for the 
Germans, they had no false modesty about their 
merits. During the reign of Nero, certain Frisian 
ambassadors came to Rome and in the course of their 
entertainment were brought into the theatre. Here 
they quietly and uninvited took the seats of honor, 
remarking that no people in the world surpassed the 
Germans in courage. As we have repeatedly noticed, 
they always went about armed, no matter how peace- 
ful their business of the moment ;2 and a man unarmed 
was no better than a slave. They took their weapons 
to bed with them, as we may read in the account of 
Beowulf's watch in the hall on the night when he 
expects a visit from the monster Grendel.^ There 
are some very curious regulations in the Anglo-Saxon 
laws with regard to the degree of blame and the fine 
attaching to a man who carries his spear so carelessly 
over his shoulder as to injure other people;* and 
we may see the earliest advances of law over license 
in the edicts against drawing a weapon in the hall 

1 Miillenhoff's fine summary may be quoted: "Etenim majoribus 
nostris fortitude non modo summa sed prope divina virtus ac sola 
pugna esse videbatur, qua simul et omnis viri virtus et suprema om- 
nium fatalis vis cerneretur." De antiq. Germ, poesi, p. 12. 

2 Germ. XIIL J. Grimm, K. A. 287. 

3 See also Lehman, in the Germania, Vol.. XXI. p. 494. 

4 Schmid, p. 90, § 36. 



228 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

or presence of the ting.^v Spear and shield are an 
easy metonymy for warrior, and warrior is synonymous 
with man ; hence the legal phrase of " spear-side " for 
the male line of descent, in contrast to the "spindle " 
of the female side. We still hear occasionally this 
phrase of " relatives on the spindle side " used for 
maternal kin. King Alfred's will speaks of the 
spere-healfe and the spinl-healfeP' 

When the German was not fighting, he loved to 
feast in his hall and hear good songs and tales of 
war. '* To hear of battle and conquest was the Ger- 
man's delight ; " ^ and long after his conversion to 
Christianit}^ it is the deeds of valor Avhich most 
attract him in the Bible and the legends of the 
church. The poet of the Heliand^ with his evideitt 
partiality for " valorous Earl Peter," and the revel 
of battle-metaphors which describe the attack upon 
Malchus, shows what he would do if only the quiet 
gospel narrative aiforded him an opportunity. Com- 
ing back to the Anglo-Saxons, we find the subject of 
Judith offering unusual attractions to one of our old 
but nameless poets ; the resolute widow smiting off 
the head of drunken Holofernes, the ensuing fight, 
the rout of the heathen, are all close to the Germanic 
heart, and it responds in a fiery piece of epic, per- 
haps our finest fragment of the oldest period. From 
their scraps and shards of poetry alone we could 

1 iElfred's Laws, Schmid, p. 74. 

2 Quoted from Thorpe's Biplomatorium, p. 491, in Wright's Woman- 
kind in Western Europe, p. 59. "Das nechste blut vom schwert [here 
taking place of spear] geboren erbet, und da keiu schwert vorhanden, 
erbet die spille." R. A. 163, 171. 

3 Grimm, Andreas und Elene, XXIV.; Ten Brink, Geschichte d, 
engl. Lit. p. 56 f. 



THE WARRIOR 229 

tell why Tacitus calls the Germans "a race that 
thirsts for dangers." ^ The passion began with in- 
fancy. Tacitus, speaking of the Tencteri, a Low 
German tribe which excelled in horsemanship, says : 
" Not greater among the Chatti is the renown of the 
foot-soldier than the fame of the horseman among 
the Tencteri. So the ancestors established it, and 
so the offspring imitate. It makes the sport of 
children, the rivalry of youth, the habit of age.''^ 
What Tacitus means by sport of children is evidently 
their early skill in sitting and managing a horse; 
but a certain commentator looks deeper. Evidently, 
he says, the Tencterian children begin their chival- 
rous career "on wooden rocking-horses."^ Caesar, 
too, bears testimony to this training of the German 
youth. "All their life is spent in hunting and in 
military exercise." ^ Seneca speaks of their " tender 
children," who early learn to " brandish the spear." ^ 
A host of later Roman witnesses could be called, 
when the almost generous admiration of great cap- 
tains like Csesar, and statesmen like Tacitus, changes 
into the tone of fear. When Salvianus speaks of the 
Saxons as "ferocious [efferi]," we have a whole com- 
mentary on the changed attitude of Rome towards 
Germany. True, there is no lack of justification for 
the phrase. Whenever we wish to see any Germanic 
trait in its most exaggerated form, we look to Scan- 

1 " Gentes periculorum avidas." Hist. V. 19. 

2 Germ. XXXII. 

3 We quite agree with Schweizer-Sidler that this view is ''fast 
IdcherlicJi." 

4 B. G. VI. 21. 

5 JSpist. 36. 7. Other references of the kind will be found in Miil- 
lenhoff's article on the Sword-Dance, cited above, p. 112. 



230 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

dinavia. Of course, the " Bearsarks," the Berserker^ 
are the stock illustration of the old Norse ferocity 
and lust for battle ; yet according to Vigfusson and 
Powell,^ this matter of the Bearsark rage and frenzy 
has been vastly exaggerated. " Bearsarks were really 
chosen champions ;^^ and they doubtless made great 
clamor when they went into the fight, with " their war- 
whoop, and the rattling of sword and spear against 
shield," which only agrees with the Tacitean account 
of the noise made by a German line of battle at the 
first wild onset. Bearsark, says our authority, means 
simply the fur coat of the nobler henchmen. We 
may remember that the Germans of Tacitus wore 
skins. That these men were gentle, is not asserted; 
but they were not crazy. The Germanic tempera- 
ment was savage, uncertain, and gloomy; pent up 
in the narrow Norwegian valleys,^ increased by 
seclusion and intermarriage, these characteristics 
took an acute form. Even in recent times, the 
Norwegian's knife flashed out on very slight provo- 
cation. Battle would naturally fan their fury to its 
height; but it was all in the way of natural, not 
artificial ferocity. The Bearsarks were not pro- 
fessional lunatics. 

The prime quality of barbaric courage is a fine 
contempt for death. Of this we shall have more to 
say under the head of Germanic belief in immortal- 
ity ; here we may consider it as it affects the war- 
rior. High over all suspicion of rhetoric rises the 

1 Maurer, BeTcehrung der Norweg. Stdmme, II. 408, makes it thus, 
and refers the name to the same idea as that of werewolves. Others 
insist on baresarks, because they went into fight without armor. 

2 C. P. B. I. 425, 530. 3 ibid. p. 426. 



THE WARRIOR 231 

death-cry of Ragnar Lodbrok, as he lies in the pit 
full of serpents : — 

Lapsed is life's hour ; laughing I die.^ 

It was the Germanic virtue to take death with this 
"frolic welcome." The Atla-Kvv6a or Old Lay of 
Atli (Attila) gives us an excellent illustration, drawn 
in sharper lines than the corresponding scene of the 
Nibelungen Lay. The translation is by Vigfusson 
and Powell: 2 — 

" They asked the brave king of the Goths ^ if he 
would buy his life with gold. [Then said Gunnar,] 
'Hogni's bleeding heart must be laid in my hand, 
carved with the keen-cutting knife out of the breast 
of the good knight.' They carved the heart of 
Hialli (the thrall) from out his breast and laid it 
bleeding on a charger and bore it to Gunnar. 

" Then spake Gunnar, king of men : ' Here I have 
the heart of Hialli the coward, unlike to the heart 
of Hogni the brave. It quakes greatly as it lies on 
the charger, but it quaked twice as much when it 
lay in his breast.' 

" Hogni laughed when they cut out the quick heart 
of that crested hero, he had little thought of whim- 
pering. They laid it bleeding on the charger, and 
bore it before Gunnar. 

" Then spake Gunnar. ... ' Here have I the heart 
of Hogni the brave, unlike the heart of Hialli the 
coward. It quakes very little as it lies on the charger, 
but it quaked far less when it lay in his breast.' 

1 " Lifs ero li'Snar stundir, Isejandi skal-ek deyja." See C. P. B. II. 
341 fe. Grimm, G. D. S. 89 f. 

2 I. 48 f. 3 Gunnar. 



232 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

"... The band of warriors put the kmg alive into 
the pit that was crawling with serpents. But Gun- 
nar, alone there, in his wrath smote the harp with 
his hands; the strings rang out." 

When the German could no longer " drink delight 
of battle with his peers " in that " game of swords," 
as his most popular kenning termed the battle, he 
found nothing left to live for, and was fain to die. 
So died by their own hand those noble Sigambri, 
" men of mark " in their clan, whom, though ambas- 
sadors, Augustus treacherously disarmed and dis- 
tributed among various cities : " out of very shame 
they put themselves to death." ^ 

Indeed, wherever we look, — at the boys who learn 
to back a steed and send spears home to the mark, at 
the warlike names of man or woman, at the actual 
combat, and if, perhaps, we include the fight which 
late Scandinavian myths insist shall end the world, 
— everywhere the evidence presses upon us that our 
ancestors were " fond o' fechtin' " to a degree rarely 
met with in history. The very metre of their poetry is 
the clash of battle, and knows scarcely any other note. 
This passion of bravery, not uncommon in barbarians 
of a mounting race, was further strengthened in the 
German by his belief in another world. The belief 
itself we shall consider later, but its fruits we may 
briefly notice in this place. In the Pharsalia of Lu- 
c an ,2 the connection of Germanic courage with Ger- 
manic faith is strongly asserted; and the native records 
themselves are full of the same testimony. The song 
of Ragnar Lodbrok, from which a quotation was just 
made, contains a passage which shows how bravery 

1 Dio Cass. 55. VI., and Deutsche Vorzeit, p. 304. 2 i. 453 ff. 



THE WARRIOR 233 

and faith went hand in hand. " The fearless man," 
says Ragnar, "does not quail before death. I shall 
not come into Withri's [Woden's] hall with a word of 
fearT Not, we can almost say, not as a tired actor 
going off the scenes did a German die ; but rather 
as the actor, fresh from his rehearsal, waiting for the 
word that sends him on the stage before an audience 
of warriors and kings. What better entrance than 
in the thick of fight, with a song of defiance and a 
laugh? This passion of ferocity, tutored by cen- 
turies, results at last in the calmer and nobler but 
still cheerful courage of Harry the Fifth at Agin- 
court, or of his father's antagonist in the lists at 
Coventry : — 

As gentle and as jocund as to jest 

Go I to fight : truth hath a quiet breast. 

Sometimes the consolations of death are based 

entirely on the bravery which has dared it, on the 

source of it, and on what we may call its artistic 

setting and merit. Fine are the dying words of 

Wolfhart in the Nibelungen Lay.^ He and the 
youngest of the Burgundian kings have given each 
other mortal wounds. 

And if my kin be minded to weep that I am dead, 
Go tell the best and dearest that this is what I said : 
They must not wail and mourn me, there is no reason why; 
A king's right hand hath slain me, a lordly death I die. 

This has a fine ring, and lacks not for a late echo 
in the words of Hotspur before Shrewsbury field : — 

An if we live, we live to tread on kings ; 

If die, brave death when princes die with us.^ 

1 N. L. 2239. 2 7. Hen. IV. V. 2. 



234 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

But we are overwhelmed with material of this sort ; 
take, for example, that highly dramatic scene of 
the Nibelungen Lay,^ where Dancwart cuts his way 
through the Huns, and bursting into the banquet 
hall, where sit Etzel and Kriemhild with their royal 
guests, cries out to his brother Hagen that all the 
Burgundian retainers have been massacred in their 
quarters ; and grim Hagen asks : — 

" But who has done it, then ? " 
" That has fair Master Bloedel and with him all his men ! 
Yet dearly has he paid us, let this at least be said. 
For with these hands of mine, I've stricken off his head." 

" That is no weeping matter," made answer Hagen bold; 

" If only of a warrior such story may be told. 

That hero's hand hath slain him in free and open fight : — 

For such a death fair women should make their mourning light." 

The thought lapses from this grave old setting into 
the lighter frame of a modern commonplace ; we find 
it, for example, in Herrick, who if a " pagan," as 
critics will call him, was as English a pagan as ever 
loved beef and ale. 

To conquer'd men some comfort 'tis to fall 
By th' hand of him who is the generall.^ 

On the other side of the picture, we find terrible 
disgrace in the death of a hero or warrior by the 
hand of woman. This is the very climax of tragedy 
in our Mbelungen Lay. All are slain save the arch- 
murderer, Hagen, and the arch-avenger, Kriemhild, 
the too faithful vassal and the too faithful wife. 
Kriemhild takes her dead husband's sword and kills 

1 Avent. XXXIII. 2 " Some Comfort in Calamity." 



THE WARRIOR 235 

with it the murderer, who is bound and helpless 
before her ; in some ways, we are ready to concede, a 
just retribution. But the sentiment of Kriemhild's 
own living husband and ally in vengeance cannot 
applaud the act. 

" Alas," bewailed the monarch, " Alas, and now is slain, 
All at a woman's hands, the best and noblest thane 
That ever led in battle and ever lifted spear ! 
And though he was my foeman, his fall shall cost me dear." 

Out spake old Hildebrand : " No comfort shall she know 
Because she dared to slay him ! " 

And the gray-headed warrior springs to the woman 
and kills her, and no one holds him back or blames 
him for his deed. 

But this sense of fitness and unfitness, the consola- 
tions of an honorable death and the horrors of slaugh- 
ter at unworthy hands, are less intense than the 
religious and fatalistic sanctions. It is instructive, so 
far as fatalism is concerned in the matter, to see how 
the opposite notion of individual freedom, personal 
responsibility, that tendency to trust in one's man- 
hood and in nothing else, keeps alternating in Ger- 
manic hearts with the sense of an inevitable, inexorable 
fate. The Germanic creed is undoubtedly expressed 
by King Gemot : ^ — 

Da sterbent wan die veigen, — 
Only the doomed ones die, — 

which is nothing more than Hamlet's, " If it be now, 
^tis not to come ; if it be not to come, it will be now 
. . . the readiness is all."^ But the impetuous sense 

1 N. L. 149. 2 Ham. V. 2. 



236 GERMAmC ORIGINS 

of individual manhood, the anticipation (if we must 
find a modern instance) of Fletcher's nobler astrology, 
— " man is his own star," — rebelled against this 
helpless note of acquiescence, and tacked a fiery 
rider to the wonted phrase. Fate, says Beowulf, as 
he tells of his battle with the sea-monsters,^ fate often 
saves a man if he have plenty of courage. 

Oft ^Vyrd preserveth 
undoomed earl, — if he doughty be. 

The same idea and the same phrase, with very slight 
change, passed into the Christian poetry of our ances- 
tors, and have since become a commonplace. In 
the Anglo-Saxon Andreas we read:^ — 

Therefore sooth will I say to you ; — 
never leaveth the living God 
earl to his doora, if he doughty be. 

"Wyrd," the fate-goddess, has been changed to suit 
the new faith; but the essentials of the old epic 
phrase are there. In one passage of the Beowulf we 
have a characteristic ^ blending of the two religions. 
Grendel the monster would have devoured many more 
warriors of the Danish court, — 

Had not wisest God their AVyrd averted, 
and the man's bold mood, — 

that is, had not Beowulf slain the demon.^ We may 

1 Beow. 572. Fsege is the same word as veigen above, like Scotch /e?/. 

2 459 fE. 

8 Characteristic, because the B^oioulf is a heathen epic put together 
by a Christian monk. 

4 Beoio. 1057 f. The idea is of course evident enough ; the original 
sentiment, however, is not a commonplace, but an ethical theory, a 



THE WARRIOR 237 

add one example from Scandinavian poetry. In the 
Skirnismdl, where Skirnir is to ride to giant-land and 
win for the god Freyr that maiden Gerthr, whose 
fair white arms " shed a light through all the sky and 
sea," Freyr gives to the messenger both steed and 
sword : " a horse will I give thee that shall bear thee 
through the murky waver-flame,^ and a sword ivhich 
will brandish itself and fight, if he is brave that holds 
ity'^ This rises quite above the commonplace, even 
of the old epic; a sword of self-respect evidently, 
that will not move to its miraculous calling, if it be 
held in ignoble hands. What were thought to be 
noble hands in such a case would be easy to prove 
from even random selections of Germanic poetry. 
Let us take a single example. It is that fine old 
Saxon ballad of the Fight at Maldon where " Alder- 
man '' Byrhtnoth, with a hastily gathered array of 
the local militia, opposes a party of Danish pirates. 
These offer him peace in return for tribute, a bargain 
too often struck in the degenerate days of ^thel- 
red. But the Saxon answer has a ring ancestral 
at once and prophetic of the later English hardihood. 

part of the most intimate Germanic life. It is always instructive to see 
these epic forms and phrases passing into burlesque, which loves to 
catch popular sentiment. Thus our fine old personal equation of the 
providence of Wyrd finds echo in Chaucer's Sire Thopas. That gallant 
knight is hard put to it in combat with a giant, Sir Olifaunt by name : — 

Sir Thopas drough on-bak f ul faste ; 
This geaimt at him stoones caste 

Out of a fell staf slynge; 
But fau-e eschapeth child Thopas, 
And al it was thurgli Goddis yras. 

And thurgh his faire berynge. 

1 The girdle of fire about the maiden's hall. 

2 Skirnismdl, 9, in Hildebrand's Edda, p. 54. 



238 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Byrhtnoth spake, his shield uplifting, 

waving light spear, with words replied, 

angry and resolute, answered back : — 

" Hear'st thou, seaman, what say this folk ? 

They will pay you tribute in trusty spears, 

venom'd darts and dear-held swords, 

war-gear that steads you the worse in battle ! 

Herald of pirates, hear our answer ! 

Say to thy people no pleasant message : — 

Here stands, not unhonor'd, an earl with his band, 

who is fain to defend these fields ye see, 

^thelred's land, my lord and master, 

the folk and the ground. . . ." ^ 

The fight begins, and Byrhtnoth struggles gallantly, 
but he is sorely pressed by the foeman and at last 
wounded with a spear. He — 

pushed with his shield that the shaft broke off, 

and burst the spear that back it sprang ; 

fierce grew the thane, and he thrust his lance 

in the wicing proud who had wounded him. 

Sage was the chieftain, sent his lance 

through the pirate's neck with knowing hand, 

till he reached the heart of the heathen foe. 

Straightway a second spear he drove 

that the corselet burst ; the breast was wounded 

through ringed mail, in the midst of the heart 

stood the poisoned edge : the earl was blither, 

the bold one laughed, and his Lord he thanked 

for this good day's work that God had sent him . , ? 

Then he is himself killed, but dies fighting to the 
last, shouting courage to his men, and with a song 
of proud thanksgiving on his lips : — 

I praise and thank thee, Prince of nations, 
for all my delights while I lived on earth, — 

1 Maldon, 42 ff. 2 130 ff. 



THE WARRIOK 239 

and expires with a prayer for his soul's welfare. So 
fought and so died a true Saxon, true to the spirit 
of his ancestors who nearly a thousand years before 
had defied the legions. For Byrhtnoth, with his 
splendid achievement, stands just midway between 
our time and the times of Csesar and Tacitus. 

If such was the Germanic estimate of courage, it is 
easy to guess what would be for them the vice of 
vices and the crime of crimes. Disgrace was stamped 
indelibly upon the man who left his shield behind him 
in the battle. He was shut out from tribal worship, 
entered no fane, took part in no council, and — if this 
is not the flourish of Tacitean rhetoric^ — often ended 
his infamy by a self-inflicted and ignominious death. 
Direct cowardice, desertion, and similar crimes found 
no mercy whatever .^ Such offenders, where treachery 
was suspected, were promptly hanged; while the mere 
coward and the fugitive, like the doer of nameless 
crimes, were sunk wretchedly in a swamp with a 
wicker-hurdle pressed over them, the punishment of 
women : — 

Cowards who were in sloughs interred alive ; ' . 
And round them still the wattled hurdles hung 
Wherewith they stamp'd them down, and trod them deep, 
To hide their shameful memory from men.^ 

Crimes, says Tacitus, should be punished openly; 
but scandals stifled in darkness and silence. Both 
of these modes of execution survived in the middle 
ages. 

We have mentioned hanging as in some degree a 
soldier's death. To hang a convicted man to the 

1 Germ. VI. 2 Qerm. XII. 3 Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead. 



240 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

nearest good tree was the sentence of the Westpha- 
lian VeJimgericht} Our old friend of the ballad, 
Johnie Armstrong, with many others of the " most 
noble thieves," — that is, marauders of the Scottish 
marches, — were all, by the king's command, " hanged 
upon growing trees." ^ These were gentlemen born. 
The punishment of the gallows was widely used by 
our earliest ancestors, and finds a varied expression 
in the older literature, — chiefly in Scandinavian 
poetry.^ It was by no means so ignoble an exit from 
life as it is now, and indicated no absolute disgrace 
like the vile indignities of the hurdle and the swamp. 
The gallows did not mutilate a body, and its victim 
had moreover a fine chance to join the Wild Hunts- 
man as he swept by, and so to storm the heights of 
heaven and Valhalla.* Nay, Odin himself, as he 
tells us in the Hdvamdl^ ''hung nine nights on the 
windy tree," that is upon the gallows ; ^ and whether 
or not this be a Norse version of the Crucifixion, the 
honorable association remains. Oddly enough, some 
distorted mediaeval legend proclaimed that Croesus of 
old ended his days in this fashion, as had been fore- 
told him in a dream ; and in defence of popular faith 
in visions he is cited by the hero of the Nonne Prestes 
Tale in Chaucer .^ — 

Lo Croesus, which that was of Lydes king, 
Mette '^ he nought that he sat upon a tre, 
Which signified he schuld hanged be ? 

^ See a popular but accurate account in Vehmgerichte unci Hexen- 
processe, by Dr. Oskar Wiichter, in the " Collection Spemann." 
2 See Child's Ballads,2 VI. 365. 3 Grimm, R. A. 682 ft. 

^ Rochholz, Deutscher Glaube mid Branch, I. 273. 
5 Bugge, Studier, 292. 6 y. 318 ff. ' " Dreamed." 



THE WARRIOR 241 

Since hanging had these associations, ingenuity was 
quickened to put some disgrace into the fact ; and a 
fashion often employed was the device of hanging 
wolves or dogs along with the culprit, who was also 
placed head downwards, — one of the numerous com- 
pliments which mediaeval law paid to the Jews.^ Even 
under the more ignoble circumstances, hanging was 
a penalty reserved for males ; women were burnt, 
drowned, or stoned to death. "Den dieb soil man 
henken und die hur ertranken." ^ Later it was the 
prerogative of nobles to be beheaded, while common 
men were hanged ; but the poet of Beotvulf seems to 
indicate that if the old king, Hrethel, had punished 
Hsethcyn in the way of blood-feud for the innocent 
murder of the elder brother Herebeald, it would have 
been by the gallows. The monarch cannot bring him- 
self to it : — 

Grievous it is for the gray-hair'd man 
to bide the sight that his son must ride ^ 
young on the gallows.* 

We may conclude that a gallows-destiny, while not 
yearned for, and far less noble than death by sword 
or spear, did not acquire its peculiar disgrace until 
the middle ages. In the time of Tacitus, men 
who, certainly at some bodily risk, deserted their 
own cause and betrayed it to the enemy ,^ were 
hanged to trees — probably, says Grimm, dead and 
leafless trees. The victims were thus a sacrifice to 



1 R. A. 685. 2 iijid. 687. 3 << Ride " is the technical term. 

* B^ow. 2444. In the Sacred Grove at Upsala in Sweden, says Adam 
of Bremen, could be seen many corpses of men and beasts hung upon 
the trees. 6 " Proditores et transfugas." 



242 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

tribal gods. But no god cared for the coward who 
fled in sheer physical terror, nor for the worker of 
abominations in ordinary life : these were stamped 
and buried out of sight, in slime and mud.^ 

It is evident that cowardice was the unpardonable 
Germanic sin, and courage the cardinal virtue of a 
Germanic warrior. Let us now glance at these war- 
riors in their array. The make-up of the army was 
not very intricate ; discipline, system, the strategic 
conduct of a campaign, were hardly known at all. 
An Arminius, trained as he was to Roman discipline, 
might for a while animate the army with single plan 
and spirit; but he could not organize his troops 
for permanent work nor establish a regular system. 
Leadership consisted not so much in direction and 
organization as in example of valor. The individual 
warrior was the one supreme element, his personal 
strength and his courage ; and he was, moreover, 
decidedly better than his weapons. These were poor 
enough. With some allowance for the purpose of 
the speech, the description given by Germanicus in 
his address to the legions ^ furnishes our best idea 
of the German soldier and his arms. " Not only the 
open field," said Germanicus, " was a good battle- 
ground for the Roman soldier, but also, if one acted 
in a rational way, the forests and thickets. For the 
huge shields and the long spears of the barbarians 
could not be managed among the tree-trunks and low 
bushes so easily as the javelin, the sword, and close- 
fitting coverings. The main thing for the Romans 
was to rain their sword-strokes upon the faces of the 

1 Kemble, in his Salomon and Satiini, p. 89, gives some further illus- 
trative passages. 2 xac. Ann. II. 14. 



THE WARRIOR 243 

enemy ; the Germans had neither armor nor hehnet ; 
not even their shields were made of iron or leather, 
but were simply a sort of plaited willow-work with thin 
painted boards. The foremost line of battle might be 
fairly well supplied with spears ; the rest had darts, 
short, or else with points hardened in the fire." ^ This 
is not a very good showing for the Germanic arsenal ; 
but we must not forget the occasion. Moreover, we 
have the testimony of the graves and other finds. 
If the bronze age is reckoned from about 1500 to 
500 B.C., we must count bronze swords, of which 
Denmark's soil has surrendered such numerous and 
exquisite specimens, among the possible acquisitions 
of a sturdy German warrior.^ Perhaps such are the 
enta geiveorc^ the work of giants, of which we hear so 
often ; and there is good reason to think that these 
are meant when, in Saxon or Scandinavian poetry, 
reference is made to the " fallow " sword.^ True, 
Germanicus does not mention the sword in his list of 
the barbarian arms ; and we may well infer that it 
was not the universal weapon. Metals were rare in 
Germany; and iron, though familiar, does not seem 
to have been mined and worked.* Swords were, 
nevertheless, known and valued by the Germans ; and 
nothing is so often mentioned in their traditions. On 
the column of Marcus Aurelius the Germans are rep- 
resented with short, crooked swords ; and swords are 

1 The account of Cimbrian arms given by Plntarch speaks of swords, 
armor, and so on, but they are evidently booty taken from the enemy. 
What forges were there in the German forests to turn out such work ? 

2 See Montelius, passim. 

3 See Vigfusson-Powell in C. P. B. II. 481. 

4 Germ. VI. : " Ne ferrum quidem superest " ; that is, not even iron 
abounds. But in the early days it was imported. 



244 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

mentioned among the Germanic tribes which, notably 
under Ariovistus, made front against Caesar. A 
sword Avas undoubtedly expensive and highly valued; 
for as late as the sixth century, among the Franks, 
sword and scabbard are reckoned at the worth of 
seven cows, while shield and lance together only 
equal two cows.^ The antiquity of the sword as Ger- 
manic weapon can be inferred from another consider- 
ation — the name of the Saxons, which is supposed to 
be derived from the short sword or seahs (our oldest 
English form of the word) carried by warriors of 
that race. 2 To be sure, the name of Saxons is not 
known to Strabo, Pliny, or Tacitus, and is first men- 
tioned by Ptolemy in the middle of the second cen- 
tury as belonging to a small tribe on the Cimbrian 
peninsula. For all that, however, the name is far 
older than the mention of it, and was doubtless 
applied to themselves by all the minor tribes along the 
Elbe and the Weser. By the fourth century, Saxons 
and Franks are the chief Germanic races. Saxnot is 
one of the abjured divinities in the famous renuncia- 
tion; and in the genealogy of the kings of Essex, 
Saxneat is the son of Woden. Saxons, then, must 
mean "the men with short swords," and Saxneat 
"the sword-companion." Grimm quotes the well- 
known account of Nennius,^ where Hengist tells his 
men: "When I cry out to you and say '•en Saxones^ 
nimith eure Saxas,^ ^ seize your knives and rush upon 

1 Arnold, Deutsche Urzeit, p. 279. 

2 Zeuss and Grimm uphold, Kerable opposes, the etymology. See 
Kemble's Saoions, I. 41; Grimm, G. D. S. 4:24.; Miillenhoff in HaiipVs 
Ztst., Anzeiger, VII. (1881) p. 213. According to Miillenhoff, sax is 
neuter, and means an instrument for cutting. 

3 Hist. Brit. Cap. 46. ^ That is, " Saxons, take your swords." 



THE WARRIOR 245 

the foe." Continental Saxons of a later date were 
wont to bring their knives when they came to court, 
and thrust them in the ground as they declared them- 
selves guilty or innocent of a given charge ; ^ and 
this, Jacob Grimm thinks, is a survival of the Ger- 
manic habit of going armed to all popular assemblies. 
Other names that may be connected with the sword 
are the Cherusci,^ the clan of Arminius, and the tribe 
which our Widsith calls the "Swordsmen"; for per- 
sonal names a good example is the father of Beowulf, 
Ecgtheow, — that is, " Sword-servant." 

Short swords of this pattern were carried by the 
Rugii, as Tacitus especially notes.^ But the Cim- 
brians in Italy had longer swords ; and the description 
of their weapons by Plutarch points, as was hinted 
above, at a long career of plunder on the part of 
these invaders who had made their way through 
Gaul, and had met repeatedly troops of good equip- 
ment. Plutarch describes their cavalry as furnished 
with "breastplates of iron and white glittering 
shields ; and for their offensive arms every one had 
two darts, and when they came hand to hand, they 
used large and heavy swords."^ Kemble^ speaks 
of the "long, heavy Celtic or German sword," as 
contrasted with the short weapon of the Roman. 
These long swords were often two-edged, — and are 
found in German graves.^ In the Waltharius Lay, 
the hero carries two swords, one short and with 
single edge, on his right side, the other long and 

1 R. A. 112. 2 Grimm, G. D. S. 426. 3 Qemi. XLIV. 

4 Plutarch, Marius, Dryden-Clough translation. 

5 HorsR Ferales, p. 63. 

6 Holtzmann, Germanische Alterthiimer, 141 f. 



246 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

double-edged, on his left. It is often assumed that all 
these swords were of iron ; but Grimm in his list of 
weapon-names ^ says under seax " urspriinglich wohl 
eine steinwaffe," and Baumstark^ reminds us not 
only of the stone swords found along the Baltic, but 
also of the great number of swords made from bronze. 
Swords found in those German graves which are 
known to belong to the period of tribal movement 
are mostly of iron ; by that time the iron sword and 
(among the Franks of the sixth century) the battle- 
axe were chief weapons of the German foot-soldier. 
When Tacitus says that " few Germans use swords," ^ 
he is stating for the first century what still held true, 
to a large degree, in the ninth or tenth. In Cnut's 
time shield and spear, bow and arrow, were weapons 
for the rank and file ; and a sword is in our own 
day mark of the officer as distinguished from the 
common soldier. Anglo-Saxon law made a " ceorl " 
" siScund," that is, raised his rank, when he had 
helmet, coat-of-mail, and gilded sword, no matter 
whether he owned land or not.^ The importance of 
the sword is proved not only by the traditions and 
survivals to which we have alluded, but by the num- 
ber of names for it in literal statement;^ by the 
poetical names or kennings for it, like the Norse gun- 
nlogi, or battle-flame, and the corresponding Anglo- 
Saxon headoleoma ; ^ by the personifications of it and 
name-giving, like Nsegling and Hrunting, where we 
note the humanizing force of the suffix ; and finally 

1 Deutsche Grammatik, III. 440. 2 Germ. p. 308 f. 3 Qerm. VI. 
4 Cf. Schmid, Einl. LXVL, and Lehmann, Waffen im. Beow. " Ger- 
mania," 31. 486 £f. ^ Grimm, Grammatik, III. 440, gives a list. 

6 See Bode, Kenningar, p. 55 f. 



THE WARRIOR 24T 

by the actual worship of it. How our forefathers 
would have felt the force of the dialogue in the fine 
Danish ballad Hcevnersvcerdet^^ where the hero takes 
counsel with his sword, or where by naming its name 
he restrains its thirst for blood! ^ Sometimes we 
find a sort of pact or league between warrior and 
sword, and when both keep the promise there is great 
glory won. So of the hero and his good brand in 
Beowulf:^ — 

Neither melted his courage, nor his kinsman's bequest 
weakened in warfare. . . . 

When a sword is about to kill some one, it gives 
forth a noise ; * in the Anglo-Saxon Finnshurg frag- 
ment, besides the usual battle-omens of screaming 
birds, the coat-of-mail "yells" or clangs, the war- 
wood (spear) dins, and "shield answers shaft." ^ 
When Beowulf is going to seek and slay the monster 
mother of Grendel in her own ocean fastness, he 
borrows a sword ; its name, the poet tells us, is 
Hrunting, and it is the noblest of ancient treasures, 
an heirloom ; its edge is iron, stained with poison- 
drops and hardened with blood of battle ; in fight it 
never yet had played false to the man who brandished 
it, whenever he dared the ways of warfare, the meet- 
ing-place of foes ; this was not the first time that it 
was fated to do brave deeds. Noting, now, this seem- 
ing independence and individuality, we are not sur- 
prised at the expression which the poet uses when 

1 Grundtvig, Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, I. 350, stanzas 16 ff., 35. 
. 2 See also Child, Ballads,2 I. 96. 3 2628 f. 

4 Maurer, Bekehrung d. norioeg. Stdmme, II. 123. ^ Firms. 5 ff. 



248 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

he records a failure in the fight with the monster. 
Beowulf then found — 

that the Light-of -Battle was loath to bite, — 

and so it failed to work his will upon the foe. As for 
the speaking of swords, their word and wish, we are 
reminded of Wordsworth's personification ; for, as Mr. 
E. B. Tylor has somewhere remarked, Wordsworth's 
power in this respect almost seems to revive the force 
of old mythology : — 

Armor rusting in his Halls 

On the blood of Clifford caUs ; 

" Quell the Scot," exclaims the Lance ; 

" Bear me to the heart of France," — 

Is the longing of the Shield.^ 

Swords are full of supernatural traits, and often 
give out a magic light ; one " conquering blade," an 
" old sword of giants," sheds such radiance, — 

Even as from skies above shines and glitters 
heaven's candle, . . .2 ■ 

and thus illuminates the uncanny hall of the monsters 
with a light that reaches from the depths to the sur- 
face of the sea.^ A host of legends, gathered in 
recent times, but rooted in our oldest heathen super- 
stitions, tell of charmed weapons which are now car- 
ried by the living, and now buried with the dead, but 
are always endowed with miraculous power, often 
gleaming far off through the night. 

His sword well burnisht, shineth yet, 
And over the barrow beam the hilts.* 

1 Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle. 

2 Beow. 1558 ff. " Heaven's candle " is, of course, the sun. 

3 See Heyne's Halle Heorot, p. 46, note *. ^ gee p. 312, below. 



,THE WARRIOR 249 

To swear by one's sword — coming to the last cate- 
gory — was common down to modern times, not sim- 
ply as some commentators on Hamlet assert, because 
the hilt formed a cross, but for traditional reasons. 
Indeed, we have evidence that the sword was wor- 
shipped. The princes of the Quadi, making submis- 
sion A.D. 358 to an imperial army, draw their swords, 
"which they worship as deities," and swear to keep 
faith. So writes Ammianus Marcellinus ; ^ and in 
another place, after an elaborate description of the 
Alani, a Scythian tribe, he says that their only notion 
of religious ceremonies is to thrust a sword into the 
ground and worship it " as Mars," — this, of course, 
simply an interpretatio Romana? 

It was the fashion to write runes on the sword. 
Often, as on the spearhead of Kovel described by-^ 
Wimmer,^ the owner's name was graven upon the 
blade. The spearhead in question is probably from 
the fourth century,^ and bears the Gothic name 
TilarilSs, or "bold rider." But incantations and spells, 
taking the place of our modern mottoes, were fre- 
quently carved; and these mysterious runes could 
be of good or of evil omen. When Freyr's zealous 
henchman is wooing Gerthr for his master, and the 
maiden refuses his gold, he begins to threaten her: 
" Look on this blade, maid, slender, marked with char- 
acters, that I hold in my hand; I will hew off thy 
head. . . ." ^ Then he goes on to praise the terrible 
potency of the weapon, due in part to the mysterious 
working of the runes. In like manner, a sword could 

1 Bk. 17, Chap. XII. 2 Bk. 31, Chap. II. 

3 Die Runenschrift, p. 57. ^ i^jfj, p, 71, 

5 Vigfusson-Po well's transl. in C P. B. I. 114. 



250 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

be made useless by incantations, and Saxo tells of a 
certain Gunholm, avIio was wont to dull and lame 
(ohtundere) the hostile blade by his runic charms 
{carminihus). In Salomon and Saturn'^ ^yq are told 
that evil spirits 

write on his weapon woe-marks an heap, 
baleful bookstaves ; ^ the bill ^ they bewitch, 
the pride of the sword. 

Against this evil, one's remedy consisted in singing a 
pater-noster as one drew the sword out of its scabbard, 
and the blade was then fit to do its work. Of course 
this pater-noster takes the place of some ancient and 
heathen " backward mutter of dissevering power." 

Scarcity of iron made a relative scarcity not Only 
of swords, but also of the longer lances, those " huge 
spears " mentioned several times by Tacitus. The 
common weapons of a German warrior were ihefra- 
mea for attack and the shield for defence ; in the 
public assemblies assent was shown by clashing these 
weapons together. Concerning the nature of \hQ fra- 
mea^ much has been said ; and a close investigation by 
Miillenhoff,^ based mainly on philological data, con- 
cludes that although later Christian literature uses 
framea for sword (^gladius)^^ nevertheless we are to 
hold to Tacitus, who distinctly says it is a small 
lance or spear (hasta') with short and scanty iron. 

1 Ed. Kemble, p. 144 f. 2 Biichstaben, letters. ^ Sword, blade. 

4 In his far too sharp and contemptuous review of Lindenschmidt's 
Handbuch d. deutschen Alter thumskunde, " Haupt's Ztst." Anzeiger, 
VII. 209-229. 

5 Mllllenhoff notes that Juvenal uses framea for the lance of Mars, 
and Gellius names framese as missiles. 



THE WARRIOR 251 

As for the word, it must be Germanic ; in Miillen- 
hoff's opinion it is a derivative of fram^ and means 
"toward the front," — a projectile for close quarters 
or long range, precisely as Tacitus describes it. Jahns 
thinks that the so-called " celts " of stone or bronze, 
found so plentifully in ethnological museums, were 
fastened on a straight shaft and so formed the fra- 
mea} In later times, and with the greater abundance 
of iron, the better wrought gey\ Anglo-Saxon gdr^ or 
spear, took the place of the missile, which thence- 
forth disappears from history. This change increased 
the efficiency of Germanic soldiers, precisely as in the 
case of the African chief mentioned above,^ who con- 
verted the missile lance into a long, stout spear meant 
for thrusting alone. 

The shields of German soldiers were not elaborate. 
Otherwise they had little armor, if we except certain 
leather or possibly iron helmets used by eastern 
tribes.^ Holtzmann is rash when he says they went 
without armor, not only because they had no iron, 
but " because they loved defiance and gladly sought 
scars," — an argument that appeals, perhaps, to a 
German student, but hardly covers the ground. The 
huge shield left them in a measure independent of 
other armor ; and indeed we find them scarcely clad 
at all, fighting naked to the waist, like the older 
Gauls. We are told that the German cohorts in the 
army of Vitellius fought " with bodies naked, after 
the fashion of their country." In this guise appear 
the barbarian figures on Trajan's column ; and Caesar 
so describes the warriors of Ariovistus.^ Paul the 

"'■ See Schultz, in Paul's Grdr. II. 2. 201. 2 gee p. 209. 

3 Baumstark, Germ. p. 328. 4 Cass. Dio, 38. 45. 



252 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Deacon testifies of the Heruli, that they fought naked 
save for a cloth about the loms. Who does not 
remember that picture in Plutarch's Marius^ where 
the barbarians in sheer defiance let the snow fall upon 
their naked bodies, and setting themselves on their 
broad shields go sliding down the Alps ? These 
immense shields covered a great portion of the body ; 
Waitz says, all of it.^ They were flat, made of wood 
or wicker-work, had often a metal boss, and were fre- 
quently colored. Like " ash " as name for spear, 
"linden" or the like is often used for shield, — the 
material for the weapon itself. Naturally, such 
shields cost but little, and were subject to very rough 
usage in battle. At the end of the fragmentary Hilde- 
brand Lay, we read of flying splinters from the rapid 
sword-strokes of the combatants ; and elsewhere we 
are told of a shieldbearer who in the heat of battle 
reaches a fresh shield to his warrior. With regard to 
the color, white shields, as in the case of Hildebrand 
and Hathubrand, as well of the Cimbrians in Italy, 
are often mentioned. The shields of the Harii ^ were 
black ; those of the old Frisians were brown or 
white ; the Saxons preferred red. For the Franks in 
the fifth century, Sidonius Apollinaris describes the 
shields as snow-white in the circle, tawny in the 
boss.^ Holtzmann thinks these colors were a rude 
heraldry, a means of distinguishing tribe from tribe, 
and even clans and families. Perhaps a symbol 
of some sort was painted on the shields. The Cim- 
brians wore forms of animals on their helmets, like 

1 Verfassungsges. I. 44. 2 Qerm. XLIII. 

3 ** Lux in orbibus nivea, fulva in umbonibus." See Weinhold, 
Altnord. Leben, 207. 



THE WARRIOR 253 

the carven boar of Anglo-Saxon times ; ^ and we hear 
in other places of the "emblems" of the Germanic 
shield. 

How useful the shield was — and became — can be 
seen from the " board-wall " (hordwealV) or wall of 
shields^ which Anglo-Saxon warriors made, and 
which would have held the field at Senlac if Harold's 
orders had been carried out,^ and his men had kept 
their ranks. So in the ballad of Maldon we have 
allusion to this shield-wall ; and the poem gives us a 
spirited picture of the doughty "Alderman" arranging 
the line of battle and exhorting his warriors to play 
their parts like men. In The Battle of Brunan- 
hurli^'^ another ballad of Anglo-Saxon heroism, we 
hear the cry of delight that warriors have hewn 
their way through this shield-wall ; for " cleaving the 
shield-hedge " was as much as routing the enemy. 

Armor, except of the rudest kind, was introduced 
among Germanic tribes during the great migration. 
In Beowulf there is frequent mention of the coat- 
of-mail and the " ring-net," — the latter a corselet 
woven out of small rings, — as well as of the boar- 
guarded helmet. We remember, too,^ that Beowulf 
expressed solicitude about his noblest war-weed, 
warding the breast, and desired that in the event of 
his death, this " work of Wayland" should be sent 
home. 

Other weapons were doubtless familiar to the Ger- 

1 Seen also on Scandinavian helmets. See Montelius, work quoted, 
p. 162. For painted shields among the old Norsemen, see Weinhold, 
Altnord. Leben, p. 428. 

2 Also called the shield-hedge, bordhaga. 

3 See Mr. Freeman's fine description, Norman Conquest, III.^ 468 ff. 

4 V. 5 f. 6 See p. Ill, above. 



254 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

man. The hammer, weapon of old Thor, must have 
had its warlike as well as peaceful functions ; ^ the 
battle-axe, which made the later Franks such a 
dreaded foe, found some use among their ancestors. The 
silence of Tacitus in regard to these Aveapons, just as 
with the bow and arrow, is not proof that the Germans 
did not have them ; indeed, bows and arrows are 
mentioned by the G-ei-mania'^ as in use among the 
Finns. Gothic archers were afterwards in high 
repute; bows are mentioned at Maldon; at Senlac, 
among the English, bows and arrows were ex- 
ceptional.^ 

Infantry, if we may use so technical a term, was 
the favorite Germanic array of battle ; but cavalry 
was also knoAvn, and in the earliest times. Caesar 
testifies to the tactics of the German horsemen. In 
the Commentaries we are told that before a general 
engagement, the cavalry of Ariovistus made constant 
attacks upon the Roman encampment, after this 
fashion: Six thousand horsemen were accompanied 
by as many warriors on foot, picked men, who formed 
a support and rallying-point whenever the cavalry 
retreated. When it was necessary to dash swiftly 
forward in long attack, or fall back rapidly to the 
rear, the foot-soldiers kept pace with the cavalry, 
holding often to the manes of the horses.* In another 
place, speaking of the Suevians, Caesar mentions the 
poor breed but toughness and exact training of the 
horses, which, when the rider dismounted to fight on 
foot, were sure to stand on the same spot till needed. 

1 Grimm, D. 3IA p. 151; R. ^. p. 64; Schultz, in Paul's Gnlr. II. 2. 
201. 

2 Cap. XLVI. 3 2ion7ian Conquest, III. 472. 4 b. G. I. 48. 



THE WARRIOR 255 

Moreover, it was deemed disgraceful to use the 
saddle.^ Tacitus tells about horses and men much 
the same story as Csesar gives us, though the great 
general is far more clear and definite. ^ Some tribes 
must have leaned more to cavalry combats, — we 
may instance the Tencteri and the Batavians ; but 
in general, and this is the statement of Tacitus, the 
chief reliance of the German was upon his foot- 
soldiers, a taste that prevailed down to the middle 
ages. It is curious to find English warriors, in the 
time of King JEthelred, riding up to the fight at 
Maldon, dismounting, and driving their horses off 
the field : — 

he 3 bade each soldier forsake his horse, 

drive it afar, and fare along, 

have mind on his hands and a manful battle ! * 

At the same fight, another warrior — • 

let from his hands his hawk so lief 

fly to the forest, and fight-ward strode. ^ 

So, at Senlac, every man in the Saxon army fought 
on foot : — 

Omnes descendunt et equos post terga relinqwint.^ 

Ammianus Marcellinus gives us a much older instance, 
with an exquisite reason. The Alamannian infantry, 

1 IV. 2. 

2 Germ. VI. This mode of fighting with horse and foot mixed together 
is not peculiar to the Germans. For other examples see Hehn, work 
quoted, 45-47. It is to be noted that German auxiliaries serving in the 
Roman army are at first mostly mounted men, and once Caesar actually 
took horses from Roman soldiers and gave the mount to Germans. 

3 Byrhtnoth. * Maldon, 2 ff. « Ibid. 7 f . 
6 Freeman, Norman Conquest, III. 472. 



256 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

about to begin battle, make a great outcry because 
the princes do not descend from their steeds ; for if 
the battle were lost, these gentry might ride off and 
leave their humbler brethren in the lurch.^ 

Regarding the army as a whole, we find that it 
moved to attack — a supremely important moment ^ — 
in the shape of a wedge; the Frankish historian. 
Richer, says that as late as the ninth century this 
wedge-shaped column was still the order of battle 
among his countrymen. Strange, moreover, is the 
statement of Saxo Grammaticus that Odin^ taught 
Hadingus to form his army in such fashion that two 
should stand in the first row, four in the second, 
eight in the third, and so on ; while on the side 
should stand (a foreign touch ?) the archers and 
slingers. This formation Scandinavians called the 
hoar's head. The same thing and the same name 
appear in the laws of Manu, and were not unknown 
to the Greeks. Scherer hence concludes an Indo- 
European origin.* Holtzmann, relying on another 
place in Tacitus, where we are told that the Germans 
fought in loose order, and were arranged by families, 
essays the parlous etymology that cuneus (wedge) is 

1 Amm. Mar. XVI. 12. 34. 

2 Religious rites, revel, and feasting often marked the whole night 
before a battle (Ann. I. 65 ; II. 12 ; Hist. IV. 14 ; V. 15) ; after favorable 
auguries, and with high pomp and ceremony, the tribe went into the 
fight. Says Miillenhoff in his essay cle antiq. Ger.poesi, p. 13, "Nulla 
enim erat major neque sanctior apud Germanos pompa, quam ubi ordi- 
nata acie universus populus ad proelium ibat." 

3 Miillenhoff shows that this is important for Odin worship. He was 
held as " auctor aciei corniculatse et ordinandi agminis disciplinae 
omnisque denique bellicse artis ac scientise traditor (i.e. magister) ac 
repertor et animi bellici creator moderatorque sapientissimus esse cred- 
ebatur." Miillenhoff, de Chor. p. 15. 

^ Ilaupt's Zeit., Anzeiger, IV. 97. 



THE WARRIOR 257 

Koman misunderstanding of kuni^ " kin," family or 
tribe. Probably the Germans dashed into battle as 
a wild, surging mass (vagis incur sihus)} but with 
coherence and oider according to families, and with 
the general shape of a wedge. A few men of valor 
in the van, the vast mob of ordinary warriors would 
naturally spread out behind the leaders. 

Leaders we call them, for generals, in our sense of 
the word, hardly existed; though there was doubt- 
less a rude system by which a number of officers were 
graded up to a supreme commander. Tacitus tells 
us 2 that the duty of such a leader was to set example 
rather than to issue commands. We may assume that 
high rank was helpful to his authority, and that elec- 
tion was necessary. Such an election of a general is 
mentioned by Tacitus,^ who says that the Cannine- 
fates, a Low German tribe, chose for their leader a 
man named Brinno, who was thereupon raised upon 
a shield, after the ancestral custom, and so rocked 
about (yihratiis) upon the shoulders of those who car- 
ried him. It is probable that this sort of leader was 
elected for a considerable period,* that he carried spe- 
cial weapons and adornments, and that he had, in 
common with the method of his election,^ much of 
the authority of a king. Like a king he received 
gifts .^ We are at some loss to set forth the true 
functions of a German leader, especially of the first 
in command. We may gather from Tacitus that he 
did not plan campaigns or direct tactics after the 
Roman fashion ; and yet Ariovistus, and particularly 
Arminius, were not mere barbarian champions. They 

1 Tac. Ayin. II. 15. ^ Q^rm. VII. 3 Hist. IV. 15. 

4 Waitz, I. 271. 5 J?. A. 234. 6 ibid. 245 fe. Germ. XV. 



258 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

certainly planned and calculated and directed large 
movements of their respective forces. In regard to the 
subordinate leaders there is no difficulty ; they were 
leaders in the literal sense, and set examples of prow- 
ess to their men. Indeed, the king or supreme chief- 
tain himself had to show this quality, just as long 
afterwards William the Conqueror was foremost war- 
rior of his army ; and Hagen tells us what Germans 
expected of their monarch : ^ — 

' Twere fitting, spake out Hagen, for such a folk's delight ^ 
As chief and lord to battle the foremost in the fight, — 
Right so as these my masters ^ have here united stood, 
And hewn thro' helm and harness till swords were bathed in 
blood. 

It argues a lower state of military science, or else 
a great jealousy of aristocratic privileges, that in some 
parts of Germany the leaders were chosen by lot. 
This is mentioned by Beda as customary among the 
Saxons,* and is found elsewhere, as among the 
Goths. However, the uniformity of tactics lessened 
the need of a general ; for the main system of battle 
was to attack the foe with tumultuous energy, bear- 
ing down all opposition by sheer force of valor and 
strength. Like our modern opening battery, as sign 
of battle begun, so in Germanic warfare a spear 
hurled over the enemy gave signal for attack.^ Plu- 

1 N. L. 2074. 

2 " Kenning " for king ; literally, " comfort of the people." 

3 The three Burgundian kings. 

4 Hist. Ecc. V. 10. When the Germans served as Roman auxiliaries, 
they were allowed to have their own officers. 

5 The hostile army was thus dedicated as sacrifice to the gods. In 
the Voluspa Odin hurls a spear into the host, and so arises "the first 
war." 



THE WARRIOR 259 

tarch, in his account of the Cimbrian attack, says 
that the Germanic infantry came upon the Romans 
like a tossed and roaring ocean. As they rushed 
into the fray, the warriors were wont to raise a wild 
chant, probably ending in a mere din of thunderous 
volume, for they used the shields to make echo and 
increase the volume of sound, holding them close to 
the mouth ; ^ while women and children, near to the 
line of battle, lifted up a great noise of wailing, which 
was meant to remind the warrior of his stake in the 
combat and so to spur him to utmost achievement,^ 
— a rough anticipation of Tennyson's picture : — 

A moment while the trumpets blow 
He sees his brood about thy knee, 

The next like fire he meets the foe 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 

These songs, thinks Miillenhoff, which warriors sang 
as they rushed into battle — who does not remember 
Senlac and the brawny minstrel of the Chanson de 
Roland ? — ended in " hoarse and strident sounds . . . 
where, one may conjecture, the r and the u particu- 
larly prevailed."^ Early in the historical period — 
perhaps before — musical instruments were in use ; 
drum, horn, and trumpet.^ A fair idea of such a 
Germanic onslaught, with accompanying battle-cry 
and song, is given by Ammianus ^ when he describes 

1 Germ. III. 

2 Ibid. VII. and Miillenhoff, de antiq. Germ, poesi, p. 11 : "Liberique 
a tergo positi ululatum sustulerunt; viri autem cantura." See also his 
references, Ann. IV. 47 and Hist. II. 22. 

3 Miillenlioff, de antiq. Germ, poesi, p. 20: " Stridores sonosque 
raucos . . . inter quos r et u prsevaluisse conjici licet." 

4 A. Schultz in Paul's Grdr. II. 2. 201. 

5 XVI. 12. 43. Bohn's translation is used. 



260 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the fight at Strasburg, in the year 357 of our era. 
Certain of the combatants, " frightening even by their 
gestures, shouted their battle-cry, and the uproar 
through the heat of the conflict, rising up from a 
gentle murmur and becoming gradually louder and 
louder, grew fierce as that of waves dashing against 
the rocks." Such was the Germanic onset. 

Tactics of actual combat, so far as any are men- 
tioned, seem to have been of a trivial nature,— 
like the feigned retreat. Helm makes the admi- 
rable comment that German war-tactics were bor- 
rowed from those of hunting. The German fought 
men as he fought wild beasts, " by cunning, ambush, 
and surprise." ^ 

To the terror of this wild attack the Romans 
opposed discipline and system. German success 
depended on an overwhelming onset and rush ; 
checked, flung back on itself, the " wedge " became 
a helpless and irregular mass, without order or direc- 
tion, unable to cope with organized assault. It was 
Marius who saw this, and placed reserves behind his 
line of battle. 

We have considered the first and more important 
branch of military service, obligatory upon every 
citizen. The second was voluntary. Aside from 
enlistment in the Roman army, — a custom which 
indeed took larger and larger proportions as time 
went on, but was regarded by the nobler Germanic 
sentiment as treason, — the young men were wont to 
enter the retinue of some powerful native chieftain. 
Caesar '^ gives us our earliest information on the sub- 
ject. Raids for plunder, he says, are not regarded as 

1 Hehn, p. 16. 2 b. G. VI. 23. 



THE WAREIOK 261 

wrong, but as a useful occasion to give practice and 
discipline to the younger warriors. If a prince ^ in 
the popular assembly offers himself as leader and 
calls on those who will follow him, all who approve 
the affair and the man rise, and amid the shouts of 
the multitude signify their assent. If then any one 
of these volunteers refuses to go, he is held as traitor 
and deserter. So far Csesar. Very probably such 
raids as these passed into permanent expeditions ; 
and we know that such an enlistment in the prince's 
service was frequently for life. Volunteers of this 
sort combined the attributes of a mediaeval free-lance 
and a Swiss guardsman. It is the difference between 
these two types that may guide us in comparing the 
account of Csesar with the description which Tacitus 
gives of the comitatus or retinue ; the comitatus, as 
we shall presently see, has a firmer basis and a better 
organization than the earlier system of volunteering. 
The comitatus was evidently one of the great moral 
factors in Germanic life and achievement. Inter- 
woven with the sense and pride of kindred, and pat- 
terned after the family compact itself, the system 
fostered a definite obligation and inspired mutual 
devotion of prince and warrior. Here, perhaps, is the 
key to Germanic success and the secret of Germanic 
supremacy. In war, indeed, of whatever kind the 
Germanic virtue of courage came to the front ; but 
in the comitatus courage was no more J)rominent than 
fidelity, loyalty, and truth. The sense of duty, the 
sense of standing and enduring for a principle, has 

1 Who was this prince? Waitz, I. 246 f., says it was not any given 
noble, but one of the j^rincipes elected by the people ; while Arnold 
holds a very different view. See the latter's Deutsche Urzeit, 336-357. 



262 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

always been the mainspring of Germanic success ; ^ 
and here the sense of duty went hand in hand with 
affection and gratitude. Where the relation was en- 
tered into for life, all these elements were invested 
with supreme ethical importance. Tacitus tells us ^ 
that young men of the best blood attach themselves 
to a leader and serve in his train. They struggle for 
the nearest place to the chieftain ; and he in turn 
strives to keep the most numerous and effective reti- 
nue. It is his pride to be surrounded by such a band, 
his honor in peace and his defence in war. In this 
way his name and influence are carried beyond his 
own country, and bring him return in renown and 
gifts; sometimes his reputation alone is enough to 
put down a war. In actual battle, the chieftain must 
not be surpassed in prowess, and the followers must 
not fail to emulate him. Shame without end befalls 
the man who deserts the chieftain, and his retainers 
must stand by him in his captivity and even in his 
death. After the battle of Strasburg, where Julian 
defeated the Alamanni, a German chief surrenders 
himself to the Romans, whereupon " his companions, 
two hundred in number, and his three most intimate 
friends, thinking it would be a crime in them to sur- 
vive their king, or not to die for him if occasion re- 
quired, gave themselves up also as prisoners." ^ In 
short, as Tacitus says, the chieftain fights for victory, 
the followers fight for the chieftain.^ 

For our own early history, both the epic Beoivulf 

1 On the Continent this Pflichttreue has hecome collective and mo- 
narchical; with Anglo-Saxons it is individual, as in the case of little 
Tom Brown half frozen on the roof of the stagecoach, with his "con- 
sciousness of silent endurance, so dear to every Englishman, — of 
standing out against something and not giving in." ^ Germ. XIII. 

3 Amm. Marc. XVI. 12. 60, trans, of Yonge. ^ Germ. XIV. 



THE WARRIOR 263 

and the spirited ballad of Maldon are very helpful in 
showing how strong a hold this system kept on na- 
tional life long after the days of Tacitus. In Beowulf 
we see both of those phases to which we have just 
referred. In the first part of the epic, Beowulf, a 
kinsman and " battle-thane " of Hygelac, lives at the 
latter's court. He hears of the troubles heaped upon 
the head of a neighbor king, Hrothgar the Dane ; 
and, in nobler mood than that of the booty-seeking 
chieftains chronicled by Caesar, chooses fourteen com- 
panions and sets off to free the monarch fi'om his foe. 
Here is a comitatus, but it is for a specified time, an 
enlistment, as we used to say, for the war ; whereas 
the Danish retainers who were destroyed by Grendel 
are the permanent followers and dependents of their 
king. Says Hrothgar : — 

Sore is my soul to say to any 

of the race of men what ruth for me 

in Heorot Grendel hath hatefully wrought, 

what sudden harries. Afy hall-folk here, 

my icarriors, wane : Wyrd hath swept them 

into Grendel's terrors. . . .^ 

To lose this comitatus is evidently the direst of ills ; 
to increase it and strengthen it is the supreme good. 
Thus, in his happier days — 

such speed of war was sent to Hrothgar, 
honor of battle, that all his kin 
obeyed him gladly : so grew the youth, 
a crowd of clansmen,^ — 

that is, his success and honor drew young men to his 
side, and swelled his comitatus to stately proportions. 
And so Hrothgar determines to build a splendid hall, 

1 Beow. 473 ff. 2 ibjd. 64 flf. 



264 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the " Heorot " described above, where he may divide 
his treasure with these warriors and give them feast 
and revel. 

Generosity and the foremost place in valor are the 
duty of the prince; absolute fidelity and devotion 
mark the clansman. " Once in battle, it is a disgrace 
for the prince to yield to any one in bravery, a dis- 
grace for the clansman not to match the valor of his 
chief. Shame and utter ruin of all reputation are his 
who leaves a battle-field alive after his prince has 
fallen." So runs the eloquent tribute of Tacitus ; ^ 
and it is instructive to see how faithfully our early 
poetry bears out his testimony. We may take an 
example of the minor sort of fidelity, an incident in 
Beowulf^ not without its homely pathos. The hero 
has gone deep into the waters to fight against the 
mother of Grendel in her ocean fastness. On the 
bank sit his vassals, with the clansmen of Hrothgar ; 
but when, after weary hours, blood begins to rise to 
the surface of the water and stain all the floods, men 
fear the worst for Beowulf; and the Danes, giving 
up all hope, leave the place. But the clansmen of 
Beowulf still hold their mournful watch upon the 
shore, and when at last their chief returns triumph- 
ant, he finds thefm where he left them, hopeless but 
constant. On the other hand, the paternal solicitude 
of Beowulf for his retainers in case he should not sur- 
vive his perilous undertaking causes him to remind 
King Hrothgar of a former promise : — 

thou wouldst be to me, 
should I faU in battle, in father's stead. 
Be thou stay and strength to my stout companions, 
my warrior-friends, if war should take me ! ^ 

1 Germ. XIV. 2 Beoio. 1479 fE. 



THE WARRIOR 265 

A still better note sounds in the final scene of our 
epic. Beowulf goes out to fight the dragon, and, 
scorning to use an army,^ he takes with him only a 
few of his best retainers, — eleven picked men.^ But 
at sight of the monster, belching flame and poison, 
the clansmen beat an inglorious retreat and leave 
their master to his fate, — all but one. Wiglaf , 
ashamed of the cowardly flight, sees from his covert 
how the old hero bears the stress of battle against 
overwhelming odds, and thinking of all the gifts and 
bounties his lord has heaped upon him, a nobler pas- 
sion seizes him. He thinks of his own boastings in 
hall: 3 — 

I mind me the time when mead we took, 
and loyal vow to our lord we made, 
in the banquet-hall to the breaker-of -rings, 
that we would reward him for warlike gear, 
if ever the hour of evil came . . .^ 

and he urges the others to go to the help of 
Beowulf : — 

Better for me this body of mine 

should fall with my chief in clutch of flame. 

Shame it were our shields to bear 

back to our land, unless the rather 

we fell the foe and defend our chieftain. ^ 

Alone he springs through smoke and flame to the 
side of his prince, speaks to him a few words of 
cheer, and then fights manfully against the di-agon. 
When all is over, and Beowulf lies dead along with 

1 Ibid. 2345 ff., 2401. 2 2638 f. 

3 For these boastings in hall, see some later instances in Child's 
Ballads, 2 II. 277. 

4 2633 ff. 5 2651 fi. 



266 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the foe, the ten come where Wiglaf, sprinkling 
water on the face of his lord, is vainly endeavoring to 
win him back to life. Out breaks the young hero's 
reproach, which closes with this prophecy of denun- 
ciation : — 

Gift of treasure and girding of sword, 

delight of home, and life's support, 

to all your kin shall hereafter fail. 

Right of land shall be lost to all 

of the men of your clan when chieftains hear 

from far-off homes of the flight ye made, 

deed inglorious ! Death is better 

for every clansman than coward life.^ 

It is a dull pulse, to be sure, that does not beat the 
quicker for these words ; but in Maldon the tone is 
even more intimate and direct. What passionate 
scorn is poured out upon the heads of those cowardly 
thanes who flee from the battle-ground and leave 
their lord dead among his enemies ! Maldon^ with 
this superb energy of patriotism, waited in vain for 
a rival until the Agincourt of Drayton ; while mod- 
ern poetry has essayed the note only to end in a sad, 
unreal chatter, saving always that passage in which 
Sir Walter's big heart throbbed to the fates of 
Flodden Field, — Scott himself no unworthy son of 
the old clansmen who put fidelity to one's chieftain 
at the head of all virtues, and his verses no unworthy 
echo of the early song: — 

The English shafts in volleys hailed. 
In headlong charge their horse assailed. 
Front, flank, and rear, the squadrons sweep 
To break the Scottish circle deep 
That fought about their king. 

1 Beow. 2884 ff. 



THE WARRIOR 267 

But yet, though thick the shafts as snow, 
Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, 
Though billmen ply the ghastly blow, 

Unbroken was the ring ; 
The stubborn spearmen still made good 
Their dark impenetrable wood. 
Each stepping where his comrade stood 

The instant that he fell. 
No thought was there of dastard flight ; 
Linked in the serried phalanx tight, 
Groom fought like noble, squire like knight. 

As fearlessly and well. 

Fidelity to chieftain and king redeems and raises 
Hagen of the Nibelungen Lay from a mere assassin 
at the outset to a splendid hero at the end. The 
character of Ruedeger in the same lay shows us a 
situation as acute as any Greek tragedy can produce. 
Not even Orestes, with filial duty dragging him in 
opposite directions, is so completely tragical a figure 
as this Germanic warrior halting in agony between 
disobedience to his lord and battle with his guests 
and son-in-law ; it is instructive to note that in this 
struggle between kin-duty and vassal-duty, the latter 
conquers. Finally, we may mark that when mission- 
aries came into the Germanic lands to preach Christ 
and his twelve apostles, nothing appealed more ac- 
tively to the native than the resemblance of this bond 
between master and disciple to his own system of 
chieftain and clansmen. Christ died for his beloved, 
and they endured martyrdom for him. What simpler 
theology ? 

Of the various names for the clansmen, the Latin 
comes seems to have been the outcome and survivor. 
When Tacitus talks of the " clients " of Segestes, it 



268 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

is by a very evident interpretatio Romana. Comes, 
perhaps from cum and eo, would thus correspond 
exactly to Anglo-Saxon ^esi^ — one who goes with 
you on a journey. More vivid are the other words 
of our old speech, eaxlgestealla, "shoulder-comrade," 
or he whose place is at the shoulder of his lord ; and 
heor^geneat, "hearth-comrade." Another word, often 
used in Anglo-Saxon law, is "^egen or " thane," with 
the prevailing notion of service, — such service as 
a freeman might, without loss of dignity, render to a 
powerful nobleman or prince.^ 

Mediaeval survivals and new creations are often 
inextricably entangled, and it is not safe to trace the 
simple comitatus of German forests amid the varying 
phases of the feudal system. Confining ourselves to 
the earlier compact, we may assume it to have been 
sometimes temporary, but often permanent. We need 
not idealize it too highly ; the arrangement was ob- 
viously good for both parties to the bargain, and 
there were substantial presents, swords, horses, jewels, 
land, for the ambitious clansman to keep before his 
eyes.2 

The age at which a warrior, whether in the militia 
or in the comitatus, began his career differed, it would 
seem, for different Germanic tribes. Holtzmann ^ col- 
lects the evidence, which fixes twenty years among 

1 See Schmid, Ags. Ges. Glossary, s.v. and the well-known anec- 
dote of Lilla, the dearest thane of Edwin, king of Northumbria; an 
assassin aims his dagger at the king ; the thane leaps before his master 
and receives the blow. 

2 See Grimm in his already quoted essay on SchenTcenund Geben; 
Vilmar, Altert. iin Heliand, p. 51 ; and for general subject of comitatus 
among the Norsemen, Vigfusson-Powell, II. 477 f. 

3 Germ. Alter, p. 196. 



THE WARRIOR 269 

the West-Goths, eighteen for the Lombards, and — 
if one can believe it — twelve for the Anglo-Saxons 
and Franks. For later times and customs, we have 
a vivid picture of the military coming of age given 
us in the Nibelungen Lay, where the festival is 
described which Siegfried's parents give in his honor 
for such an occasion ; but here the old simplicity has 
been succeeded by a number of feudal and chivalric 
elements. 



270 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



CHAPTER IX 

SOCIAL ORDER 

The king originally a creation of the race — His authority and 
duties — Inheritance and election — Ideals — The queen — Nobles 
by birth and by office — The Germanic freeman — The freedman 
and the slave — The aUen. 

At the head of the family we found, of course, the 
father; and at the head of the ^ate we naturally look 
for the king. The word " king " means the child or 
son of the tribe, its representative or even creation ; ^ 
man of race, man of rank. Gradually the king ceases 
to be regarded as a creation of his race ; his ancestry 
is pushed back to the gods, and his right is quite 
above all sanctions of popular choice or approval. 
The early Germanic king was still a creation of his 
race; true, as Tacitus tells us, he was chosen op: 
account of his noble birth, — but he was chosen.'^A 
number of Germanic tribes can be named which have 
no king in their earliest historical period ; such were 

1 "He who belongs to the race," explains Waitz, Verfassungsgesch. 
I. 326; and so interpret Curtius and Scherer. Arnold seems to take 
the same view: Deutsche Urzeit, p. 333. Grimm, R. A. 230, will not 
derive king from kin. For details of Germanic kingship, see Rosen- 
stein, Uber das altgermanische Konigthiim in the Zschst. f. Vol- 
kerpsych. unci Sprachio. VII. 113-188; and Dahn, Die Konige der 
Germanen. 



SOCIAL ORDER 271 

Marcomanni, Franks, Lombards, and Anglo-S axons .^ 
The great movement of tribes which begins German 
national history, lays the foundation of saga and epic, 
and crystallizes a mass of myths into a system, was 
also the chief factor in the development of early Ger- 
manic royalty. A constant struggle demands con- 
stant leadership ; and the republican elements of our 
old constitution disappeared rapidly in the presence 
of perennial warfare. Out of a mass of small democ- 
racies or elective monarchies, arose at last the great 
nations of the Franks, the Bavarians, the Alaman- 
nians. The popular assembly became impossible, 
except in compact England, which built up a repre- 
sentative system.2 Monarchy of some sort, it is true, 
was probably inherent in the earliest Germanic con- 
stitution; but it sat lightly on the state, and in the 
time of Tacitus there seems to be a distinction in the 
Roman mind between the German tribes that had 
kings and those that had none.^^The kings who, 
according to Tacitus, were chosen oa account of their 
nobility of birth, and the leaders (duces) who were 
chosen for their valor, were alike of the best blood of 
the race. Where a single monarch did not reign, 
princes or chieftains (principes) of the foremost 



1 Von Amira in Paul's Grdr. d. germ. Phil. 11. 2. 126. Tac. Germ. 
VII. 

2 Rosenstein, work quoted, p. 163. 

3 Waitz, Verfass. I. 295. Gregory of Tours speaks (II. 9) of long- 
haired kings {reges crinitos) chosen from the noblest families; and 
Beda, in a famous passage (Hist. Eccl. Y. 10), about the continental 
Saxons, says that ' ' they have no king, but several lords that rule their 
nation ; and when any war happens, they cast lots indifferently, and 
on whomsoever the lot falls, him they follow and obey during the war ; 
but as soon as the war is ended, all these lords are again equal in 
power."— Transl. of Giles. 



272 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

clans made up a sort of oligarclij ; and we hear of a 
king with associated or inferior kings ruling over one 
people.^ In time of war, out of several such chief- 
tains (^principes) might be chosen a leader (dux)^ as 
in the case of Arminius. Indeed, the Germans seem 
to have been fond of two leaders even in war ; Waitz 
cites the case of Hrothgar and Hrothulf .^ Moreover, 
we must note that Tacitus uses the expression " take" 
or "choose":^ " they ^ take to themselves" kings or 
leaders, as the case may be. Jacob Grimm describes 
this elective monarchy as one where inheritance was 
modified by the necessity of confirmation, and election 
was modified by restriction of choice to the royal 
family.^ Thus the Cherusci sent to Rome for a 
person of kingly lineage who happened to be the sole 
survivor of his race ; for the nobility, says Tacitus, 
were destroyed by civil strife.^ The Anglo-Saxon 
genealogies, mounting always to demi-gods and gods, 
show the stress laid upon kingly descent ; though we 
must in this case allow for the abnormal conditions of 
ceaseless raids, and a considerable concentration and 
increase in royal authority. 

^^-The newly elected king was lifted upon a shield 
and thrice borne about the assembly. He made as 
soon as possible a formal progress through his domin- 

1 A passage in Beowulf (vv. 2152 ff.) tells us that after the hero's 
liberal presents to King Hygelac and his queen, the monarch presented 
his kinsman Beowulf with a splendid sword, and also gave him " seven 
thousand, a house (home) and ruler-seat {i.e. dominion, royal power)." 
The "seven thousand" may refer to money or (Kluge, P. B.Beit, IX. 
191) to land. See also Waitz, Verfass. p. 330. 

2 Waitz, Verfass. 322. B^oio. 1191. 3 Sumunt. 
4 The popular assembly. 5 a. A. 231. 

6 Anji. XI. IG : " amissis per interna bella nobilibus, et uuo reliquo 
stirpis regiae." 



SOCIAL ORDER 273 

ions, that he might be seen and known of all his folk. 
His external tokens of royalty were originally meagre, 
and the flowing locks he shared with all freemen. 
Crown and such insignia are later matters imitated 
from the Romans ; but a military standard of some 
sort was doubtless borne before the German king. 
In peace his functions must have been judicial, and 
often sacred or priestly ; though this was not always 
the case. In historic times the priestly function 
was a royal duty for Scandinavia, but not for Bur- 
gundian and other German monarchs. Many a race 
made a god of its departed ruler ; particularly when 
he had won wide lands or brought new culture and 
social order into his dominions, deification was likely 
to follow his death.^ But in war was the chief 
strength of a Germanic king ; to his personal conduct 
of a campaign was due success or failure, and as he 
was to keep peace within his own borders, so he was 
expected to spread desolation or conquest beyond 
them. Failure was fatal. As he had been elected, 
so he could be deposed. The centre of ancient Ger- 
manic states was the popular assembly ; and a king 
was its creature, to be deposed if he were not equal 
to his task, but doubtless to hold authority amid com- 
parative awe and silence so long as he was successful. 
In times of peace he had no authority whatever to 
issue decrees, make laws, or initiate any sort of legis- 
lation ; he was executor of popular law and popular 
will. Progress in kingly power is marked by the 
oath of fidelity; and with the anarchy of war and 
conquest, kings must have acquired, little by little, 

1 See also von Amira in Paul's Grdr. II. 2. 126, 135. 



274 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

that sense of proprietorship and absolute right which 
distinguished mediseval royalty. The church lent 
her authority to make personal and individual that 
doctrine of divine right which before had been dis- 
tributed over a whole family, and the elective king- 
ship of old Germanic days was lost beyond recovery 
for feudal Europe. One land alone held fast, if not to 
the old form, at least to the old principle ; and it was 
England which by incessant struggles on the soil of 
two continents sustained, despite all reactions, the 
genius of Germanic freedom side by side with the 
derived reverence for law and discipline. The con- 
stitutional history of England properly treats these 
matters ; suffice for our purpose a single sentence 
from the close of the introduction to Alfred's laws 
for his people : " Now I, Alfred, king of the West- 
Saxons, have showed these to all my Witan, and they 
have told me that it liked them all that everything 
should be kept." The Witan, as everybody knows, 
were the legal councillors or advisers of the king, 
and in a measure representatives of the people ; thus 
we need assume no great change, except in circum- 
stances, from the Germanic king and the Germanic 
assembly. 

Of this Germanic king, prince, or leader, we have 
many descriptions in praise and in blame. At the 
opening of BSowulf we are told what was for those 
days a good king : — 

He waxed under welkin in worth and honor 
till the folk around him, far and near, 
across the whale-road ^ hearken'd to him, 
tribute gave him : good, — such king.^ 

1 Sea. •- Beow. 8 ff. 



SOCIAL ORDER 275 

The secret of prosperity — so, at least, the singers 
have all said — lay in liberality to the royal re- 
tainers ; and so our Beowulf goes on with its ideal 
picture : — 

Thus becomes it a youth to quit him well 

to his father's friends with fee and gift, 

that to aid him aged in after days 

come willing clansmen, should war draw near him, 

to help their prince. . . . ^ 

The free-handed monarch is praised by Widsith in 
our oldest English poem : — 

Likewise with ^Ifwine in Italy was I : 
of all mankind I ken, he cherished 
heart most ungrudging in gift of rings, 
sheeny treasure, the son of Eadwine.^ 

The ideal king at home was the "ring-breaker," 
who sat upon his "gift-seat" or throne, and dealt 
out treasure from an inexhaustible store, while 
tribute flowed in from countless subject tribes, and 
hostility was paralyzed by the memory of his former 
deeds. To this conception belong those epithets 
for royalty which emphasize the bond between the 
ruler and his folk, those "kennings" which call 
hjm, if a Hrothgar, " friend of the Scyldings," wine 
Seyldinga^ or "refuge for earls," eorla hleo ; and 
which often combine the virtues of friendship and 
generosity, as in " gold-friend of men," goldwine gu- 
mena^ a kenning which occurs in Beowulf's petition 
to Hrothgar that the latter may remember his prom- 
ise and be a father to his guest : — 

... of what we two spake, 
gold-friend of men, be mindful now.^ 

1 Beoio. 20 ff. 2 WidsW, 70 ff. » Beoio. 1474 ff. 



276 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Other kennings ^ of this peaceful connotation are : 
treasure-lord, treasure-herdsman (guardian), gold- 
giver, hoard-ward, wish-giver, ward (guardian par 
excellence)^ folk's-ward, warriors' ward, folk's-herds- 
man, helmet, people's protector, caretaker of folk, 
friend Qjar excellence)^ lord-friend, folk's owner, lord 
of men, judge, lord and judge, first in the land. Of a 
warlike origin are : helmet of armies, leader of squad- 
rons, leader of the people, first in deeds, " the first 
spear (frumgdr)^'' first in battle, battle-ward of men, 
armj-leader.2 It is from names like these, most of 
them old poetic forms, like the Homeric epithet, that 
we may best make up our conception of the Germanic 
king. 

The queen was naturally a prominent figure ; but 
thejkennings for her are rare. "Weaver of peace" 
is of course applied to her ; but " lady," hlcefdige^ if 
like " lord " it comes from the notion of loaf-sharing, 
is a wider term. That women now and then exer- 
cised royal functions, we learn not only from the 
famous Lady of the Mercians, but from the older 
case of the Gothic queen Amalasuntha. ~^ Offices of 
gracious hospitality we have already noticed in the 
queen of Hrothgar;^ nor, as representative woman 
of the race, could she have failed to enjoy a rich 
measure of that reverence which the Germans paid 
to her sex. 

' "Besides the king and the leaders of the people, we 
must allow for an order of nobles, men whose birth 



1 1 draw liberally upon Wilhelm Bode's Die Kenningar in der Ags. 
Dichtung, Darmstadt und Leipzig, 1886. 

2 Similar Scandinavian kennings in Vigfusson-Powell, C. P. B. 11. 
479 f. 3 Above, pp. 117, 134. 



SOCIAL ORDER 277 

and alliance mth princely houses raised them above 
the rank of ordinary freemen. The name of this 
noble quality is preserved in the German Adel^ and 
in the Anglo-Saxon m^eling^ with the general notion 
of " race," " descent." The ivergild was based chiefly 
on birth and rank ; although age, sex, office, and con- 
nection with the king were also criteria.^ The honor 
of birth was not the honor of office, but was rather 
an inherent, one might say passive, distinction. If 
there were duties as well as privileges connected 
with it, the former doubtless lay in priestly and judi- 
cial responsibilities. By old custom, the head of a 
house was its priest as well as judge and ruler. No- 
bility, we may assume, entitled men to a prominent 
place in war ; ^ and in time of peace, forms and cere- 
monies of the state religion would call for officials 
from the families to whom tradition gave divine or 
high heroic origin. Indeed, the theory that priest- 
hood was an avocation and not a regular caste or call- 
ing is strengthened by the remarkably small part it 
played in opposition to Christianity; it is Coifi, the 
Northumbrian priest, who leads in the attack upon 
the altar of his gods.^ 

The Germanic nobles were thus the oldest and 
most venerable families. We hear of them in Tacitus, 
who pays them an enemy's generous tribute in an ac- 
count of battles among the Batavians.* Whereas in 

1 Waitz, Verfass. 1. 195 f . The Angli and Werini had for the noble a 
wergild thrice as great as for the ordinary freeman. 

2 Waitz, p. 280. 

3 Waitz, ibid. See also Beda, Hist. Ecc, II. 13: " Cumque a . . . 
pontifice \sc. Coifi] sacrorum suorum quaereret \_sc. the Christian bishop], 
quis aras et fana idolorum cum septis, quibus erant circumdata, primus 
prof anare deberet ; ille respondit : Ego. ..." ^ Ann. 11.11. 



278 GERMANIC ORIGIXS 

historical Anglo-Saxon, the word oeMing always means 
a member of the royal house,^ in older times, notably 
in our epic BSowulf^ as also in many proper names 
familiar to all of us, it had a wider signification, and 
meant a man of noble blood, a man of "descent." 
Again, even before Danish influences made our old 
word eorl denote a special title of nobility like the 
Scandinavian jarl (Hakon Jarl),^ there must have 
dwelt a certain odor of eminence in the term, as op- 
posed to ceorl^ " man " of any sort. Nobles were of 
better clay than common freemen ; and the founder 
of their race being deified, his home worship, at first 
the regular manes-cult, would pass into symbolic 
rites and then into poetical traditions. To men of 
this stamp the minstrel sang about the deeds of their 
forebears, divine now, and now heroic. "We have 
heard," begins the singer of Beowulf^ "how in days of 
yore the eethelings did valiant deeds." Similarly, the 
nobles of the middle ages found chief delight in a lay 
which celebrated their ancestors : and such legendary 
songs were as indispensable to a genuine noble as the 
family pictures to the gentleman of to-day, and often 
as open to suspicion. 

In course of time, and by reason of the ceaseless 
wars of the wandering, this old nobility of the 
Germanic clans died out ; its place was taken by the 
comitatus and the official nobility springing up about 
powerful kings, until the new order became, in its 
turn, hereditary. Of the great English officials, chief 
place belongs to the so-called " alderman," who was 
representative of the king for a given shire or other 

1 Schmid, Ags. Ges. p. 527 ; c/. also Stubbs, Co7ist. Hist. I. 151. 

2 Cf. von Amira in Paul's Gi'dr. d. germ. Phil. II. 2. 113 f. 



SOCIAL ORDER 279 

division of land. Such an alderman is the high- 
hearted Byrhtnoth ; ^ he collects and leads the royal 
troops against all enemies of the king, maintains 
order in his district, and occasionally presides at 
court. The alderman seems to have been a creature 
of the king, but with consent of the witan? Later, 
the Danish " earl " took the Saxon ealdorman^s place 
and privileges; but the word had acquired a general 
connotation of superior rank.^ '•' He came to the 
town-reeve, who was his alderman," quotes Schmid 
from Beda ; and we find a curious passage in the 
Leechdoms (Herbarium), where mention is made of 
Achilles ])e ealdorman^ Other examples of this do- 
mestic rendering of foreign rank may be found in 
an Anglo-Saxon homily, where Christ is called an 
ce^eling, Moses a heretoga or leader, the saints ])eg7ias^ 
thanes or warriors, and the Jews in Egypt, — for- 
eigners, of course, — Wealhas^ " Welsh." ^ 

Ownership of land was ultimately the test of 
gentry ; but it could not have made so prominent a 
part of the Germanic noble's credentials.^ Still, such 
traditions best flourish on the soil Avhich produced 
them, and the connection of tracts of land with a 
given noble family must have been an early factor in 

1 See p. 237. 2 Schmid, Ags. Ges. 560. 

3 It was probably unknown to continental Saxons, though used by 
the Frisians. Cf. Waitz, p. 215. 

4 Cockayne, Leechdoms, etc., I. 308. The "satraps" {sairapx) or 
governors, whom Beda (see above, p. 271) mentions among the Old 
Saxons, are rendered by ealdorman in Alfred's translation. See 
Stubbs, I. 42. 

5 Another classification of ranks, found in the homilies, is 1) oratores 
(clergy) ; 2) hellatores (warriors) ; 3) lahoratores. 

6 Historians disagree. Cf. Waitz, 1. 167 f., and Stubbs, Const. Hist. 
I. 155. 



280 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the pomp and pride of nobility. The amount of land 
held by a person determined in Anglo-Saxon law 
the amount of his wergild. Blood was the origin 
of rank; it meant more than property, and far more 
than any station or command. Certainly, for the 
earliest times at least, we must not think that office 
and nobility were convertible terms. ^ 

The unit of Germanic public life was the freeman, 
the son of a free father and a free mother. True, old 
and vague traditions made the mother alone respon- 
sible, and, based on that original maternal system to 
which reference has been made above, founded the 
maxim of " free mother, free child " ; but a later 
custom caused the offspring of free and unfree to 
" follow^the worse hand," whether maternal or pa- 
ternal.^ Wurther, the freeman might be created from 
an unfree man by course of legal ceremony, or as in 
older times, by adoption. If our old word "earl" 
rightfully convey, even before the Danish influence, 
an echo of nobility, it is no fault of the ancient 
German freeman that the name " churl " stares at us 
moderns with such a stupid and ungracious air. 
This is a commentary on the havoc wrought by wars 
and conquests upon the old Germanic constitution. 
The freeman of the Norse Rigsmdl is named "Karl"; 
and an old Holstein form of administering the oath, 
to freemen of course, reads : " Step up, ye Kerls. 
. . ." ^ Grimm finds the name not only in Carloman, 
but in the word for king (hral)^ used by Slavs and 
Lithuanians, and derived from the founder of the 

1 Waitz, p. 243. Loebell, Gregonj v. Tours, pp. 87, 392 ff. 

2 Scandinavian law gave benefit of the "better hand." See von 
Amira in Paul's Grdr. II. 2. 112. 3 jj. a. 166. 



SOCIAL ORDER 281 

German empire.^ So the Anglo-Saxon form ceorl 
seems to have meant " man " ; that is, of course, the 
normal man, the freeman. Significant is the dignity 
of the word in our Beowulf. When the hero is 
planning his errand of mercy to help King Hrothgar, 
"wise men" praise his purpose and encourage him, — 
snofere ceorlas? The word is applied to the warriors 
and courtiers of the Danish king; and twice, with 
the epithet " old," it is used of royalty itself.^ This 
is for the heroic age : in the laws ceorl drops to the 
two meanings " husband " (among animals we find 
carl as a prefix indicating the male of a given species) 
and " countryman " or " peasant." ^ In one old law, 
however, it is used in the ancient sense of "freeman." 
A more descriptive name is preserved in an account of 
the heathen Saxons (continental) written by Hucbald 
in the tenth century,^ who in turn partially quotes 
Nithard, the grandson of Charles the Great, whose 
material was close at hand. It is noted that the 
Saxons had no kings, but were divided into three 
classes, called in their own tongue edlingi^ frilingi^ 
lassi. The friling is our freeman. 

The freeman (capillatus) was distinguished by his 
long, flowing hair, and by his arms, the so-called folk- 
weapons.^ The Salic Law ordains severe penalties 
against any one who shall cut or shave the hair from 
a puer crinitus without the consent of the latter's 
parents ; and on the other hand, for people to let a 
slave's hair grow long was criminal offence. The 
freeman had the right of waging private feud, so far 

1 Ibid. 282. 2 Beow. 202, 416. 

3 Beow. 1591, 2444, 2972. * Schmid, Ags. Ges. p. 543 f. 

5 Life of St. Lebuin. See Stubbs, I. 42 ff. 6 R. A. 283 ff. 



282 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

as the increasing severity of legislation did not bar 
his way. He was member of his village and district 
assemblies, as of the larger council of his tribe ; 
among people like the Saxons this meant self-govern- 
ment. As long as the freeman was mainstay of the 
state, Germanic freedom kept its vigor; with his 
decline, we pass into the tyrannies of feudal Europe, 
where nobility and serfdom, spreading out their bor- 
ders, left scant space between them for the honest 
friling. 

We need here delay no longer with the freeman, 
for it is about his life that all our task revolves, and 
whatever has been said without explicit limitation, 
belongs to his account. We turn, therefore, to that 
class which, being neither bond nor free, offers con- 
siderable trouble to the exact student of our constitu- 
tional history. Manumission from slavery gave rise 
to the so-called freedmen. These, if we may venture 
a broad assertion, seem to have been without the 
tasks of slavery or the privileges of citizenship. 
Among Anglo-Saxons, a lance and a sword, emblems 
of the freeman's rank, were handed in symbolical 
ceremony to the person thus released ; but he did not 
thereby beccy^e peer of the freeman, and even his 
descendants remained in a class by themselves, be- 
tween the freeman and the slave. ^ Such a subordi- 
nate rank, moreover, was doubtless held by men who 
submitted in a body to some conquering tribe and 
were allowed to keep land and liberty ; their seeming 
freedom was a concession, not a right. On the same 

1 The wergild followed the shades of uufreedom down to the actual 
slave, who had none at all. See also von Amira in Paul's Grdr. II. 2. 
118 f. 



SOCIAL ORDER 283 

footing were foreigners, whom our ancestors every- 
where called " Welshmen." The specific name for 
this class of freedmen among Low Germans was in 
Latin form Utus, in Frisian let, and in our own Kent- 
ish dialect, Icet,.^ 

There must have been a wide range of privileges 
among this class, scanty enough in some instances 
and little better than a slave's "seven hundred and 
twenty loaves of bread a year," but running up to 
very solid benefits. The freeman who for bread and 
clothes, or, in those old times, for a gambling debt, 
went into voluntary subjection to another man would 
be in any event better treated than the outright 
slave. ^ The church, working as a rule on lines of 
humanit}^ interfered in many ways to help the bond- 
man and make his lot more tolerable. Private agree- 
ment between superior and inferior would further 
complicate the once simple conditions and create new 
degrees of servitude,^ with a general drift towards 
fixed limits of work for corresponding wages. As 
the Germanic freeman ceased to be the most promi- 
nent factor of national life, the freedman, especially 
when a creature of the king or of some high official, 
became more and more important and ^uld rise, like 
the Roman freedman, to exalted office. The old 
noble, the old freeman, had seen their day; kings 
and the tools of kings began their long career. 

From this stage of the freedman let us look back 

1 Found in a single law of ^thelberht, which fixes a last's wergild. 
Schmid, p. 4. 

'^ Tacitus, with a touch of rhetoric, says that shame compelled the 
winner to send the loser into a distant place, as he could ill rejoice in 
such a gain. Germ. XXIV. 3 ij. a. 335, 337. 



284 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

at his predecessor in the days of Tacitus.^ " The 
freedmen (liherti'),^^ he tells us, "stand but little 
above the slaves ; they are seldom of any consequence 
in the house, and never in the state, if we except 
those races which are under the rule of kings,^ for 
there the freedmen are superior to noble and freeborn 
alike. With the other races, however, the low stand- 
ing of the freedmen is a proof of liberty." The 
freedman, in this sense, is probably of common Ger- 
manic origin ; at least he is found in historical times 
among all Germanic races save the Gothic and Scan- 
dinavian.3 

Lowest of all was the slave, a chattel, with no 
"man- worth" at all, no wergild. The murder of a 
slave was paid for as one now pays for damages in- 
flicted on a neighbor's horses or cattle. Yet we may 
be sure that slaves were no worse off in barbarian 
Germany than in civilized Rome, where the punish- 
ments inflicted on that wretched class were elabor- 
ately cruel. German slaves had no such artistic and 
systematic ill-treatment ; they might be killed in a sud- 
den fury of the master, but escaped the harder persecu- 
tion of joyless years. ^ It is remotely possible — though 
this flight needs all the wings of romantic fondness 
— that a love of freedom, the intense passion for ab- 
solute liberty of the individual, may have held back 
many a freeborn German from subjecting his slaves 

1 Germ. XXIV. By Hberti Tacitus probably means those who have 
acquired freedom in whatever way, hardly a regular class of the 
community. 

2 "Gentibus quae regnantur." 3 Waitz, 1. 154. 

4 Anglo-Saxon ordinances of the church fixed a penance for the 
man who slew his serf without judicial authority. Kemble, Saxons, 
I. 209. 



SOCIAL ORDER 285 

to scourge and torture.^ Again, the Germanic slave 
had some solid privileges which were denied to his 
Roman brother. The slave lived in his own house, 
and paid his owner a stated rent in corn or cattle or 
woven garments ; ^ and there is a note of domesticity 
in the Roman's statement that a German serf has his 
own household gods, and rules over his own fireside, 
— suos penates regit. Then follows the remark that 
a German seldom beats his slaves, or puts them in 
chains ; a sudden tempest of anger will make him 
kill his serf, but slow punishment he ignores. The 
simple conditions of German life required no army 
of slaves, no elaborate divisions of labor, as at Rome. 
Where it was possible, Germans sold their slaves to 
more civilized masters, as the Goths sold their own 
conquered kinsmen. These northern giants were 
sought as slaves in Rome ; and we all know Beda's 
account of Gregory and the fair-haired Anglian 
youths in the Roman slave-market. Slavery, one 
may say, was only an accident, an external thing, 
in the Germanic state ; the freeman was the state, 
and a widely ramified system of slavery would have 
sapped the foundations of that barbaric strength. 
Splendid is the tribute which Tacitus pays to this 
Germanic prowess and this Germanic freedom.^ "Not 
Samnites nor Carthaginians, not Spain nor Gaul, not 
even the Parthians, have given us sharper warnings. 
For mightier than the Parthian throne is the freedom 
of the Germans." 



1 Anglo-Saxon slaves were cruelly treated. See Wright, Domestic 
Manners and Sentiments, p. 56 f. 

2 Tac. Germ. XXV. Later duties of the slave, c/. Grimm, R.A. 350 ff. 

3 Germ. XXXVII. 



286 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

The chief origin of slavery must be looked for, as 
Grimm remarks, in the captivity of a conquered 
tribe. The whole race of Germans may have sub- 
dued an indigenous population at the settlement of 
the country; those "blond long-heads," as Huxley 
calls them, may have conquered "brunet broad- 
heads " or what not, and so have laid the foundations 
of their slave system ; but this can be neither proved 
nor disproved.^ In historical times, the more capa- 
ble and intelligent prisoners of war were used or sold 
as slaves, after a definite number had been sacrificed 
to the gods. Years after the victory of Arminius 
over Varus and the legions, Romans taken at the 
battle were found serving as slaves among their Ger- 
man captors. Children of such captives would natu- 
rally form a class of serfs ; and even in cases where 
one of them married a freeborn person, the offspring, 
as we have seen above, would in most cases count as 
slaves. 2 Indeed, to marry an unfree person often led 
to slavery. Again, we may add to these causes of 
serfdom the too common cases where hunger and 
destitution forced a man to give up his freedom. 
Kemble quotes a case where an Anglo-Saxon lady in 
her will frees all those who had been forced into slav- 
ery through poverty and hunger — " all who in the 
evil days had bent their heads for food."^ Hopeless 
debt made many a slave ; and the descent from free- 
dom into thraldom was facile enough. The church 
and the laws, while they enjoin forbearance and 

1 See also Waitz, I. 158. 2 b. A. 324. 

3 Saxons, I. 196. For other causes cf. R. A. 330 f. For legendary 
accounts of the origin of slavery, see, of course, Rigsmdl and references 
of Elze, Englische Philologie, p. 212. 



SOCIAL ORDER 287 

mercy as far as possible, make no question of the fact 
itself. A law of -^thelred, repeated by Cnut, runs 
as follows in Cnut's version: "And we command 
that one shall not all too easily sell Christian men 
out of the country, certainly not send them among 
the heathen ; but let it be seen to that the souls 
which Christ has redeemed with his own life be not 
brought to destruction." ^ 

The sign of the slave was his close-cut hair, and, 
often, the marks of mutilation in his face, " A slit 
nose is the mark of a thrall," says Scandinavian law.^ 
Slaves were maimed or lamed for the sake of secur- 
ity, though this precaution must have been sporadic 
among the Germans ; the capture of a whole army, 
for instance, may have made necessary something of 
the sort. We may be sure that no sentiment would 
have forbidden it. The slave had no family name. 
He wore short, scanty garments, with dull colors and 
rough material. He bore no weapons ; had no right 
to go away from his master's land; and naturally 
took no part in the popular assembly, whether to vote 
as a citizen, or to prosecute as an accuser in process 
of the rude civil law. He could marry only with the 
consent of his lord, and in that case even was obliged 
to pay a marriage-tax. It is perhaps well to note 
that recent investigation has exploded several vener- 
able legal fictions about the Germanic slave ; for ex- 
ample, that bit of historical horse-play, the theory of 
a jus primce noctis.^ 

1 Schmid, pp. 2T2, 228. In the earlier law there is a proviso, " unless 
the person have duly forfeited his liberty." ^ ^, ^, 339, 

3 See Kemble's account of Anglo-Saxon slaves, Saxons, Chap. VIII., 
and especially p. 214. 



288 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

A peculiar position was that of the stranger or 
visitor in a Germanic community. He is called " the 
far-comer," or simply '' comer," " stranger," " he who 
has come over the mark" ; one name for him, "guest," 
is the same word as Latin hostis, which so easily passed 
from " stranger " into " enemy." German elender and 
English " wretch " have acquired their present mean- 
ing from the connotation of the older words which 
meant nothing more than an " outlandish " man, an 
exile. Originally such a stranger had no legal pro- 
tection whatever; he was dependent on individual 
hospitality,^ and otherwise was subject to maltreat- 
ment and eventual slavery. In some cases the old 
laws enjoin hospitality as a part of private if not pub- 
lic morals ; and the binding law of three nights' en- 
tertainment we have already noticed.^ It is a proof 
of the artistic design of Tacitus that he sets the hos- 
pitality of the old Germans so sharply and immedi- 
ately in contrast with their family feuds. 

Little by little, as commerce increased, and the 
stranger was oftener seen in Germanic lands, stability 
and development of trade made it necessary to pro- 
tect him. This right, or duty, fell upon the king ; 
royal protection was extended to the foreigner and 
laws were passed in his favor. The king was thus 
the guardian of all wayfaring men from other lands ; 
he was their mundhora^ and therefore had a right to 
their estates, later to a part of their personal prop- 
erty. With the settled international life of mediaeval 
Europe, the stranger becomes in every nation a per- 
manent object of legal protection. 

1 R. A. 396 ff. Schraid, Ges. d. Ags. s.v. " Fremde, " p. 582. 

2 Above, p. 163. 



GOVEKNMENT AND LAW 289 



CHAPTER X 

GOVERNMENT AND LAW 

Gifts, not taxes — Organization of government — Elements of 
monarchy and of democracy — Popular councils and assemblies — 
Tlie town-meeting — Legal system — The function of priests in 
civil administration — Punishments for crime — Eorms of law — 
Ordeal and trial by battle. 

In Germany and certain other European states, 
where every sound man must learn to use weapons 
and fight at need for his fatherland, military duty 
would perhaps stand first in a list of the good citizen's 
obligations to his country. But we may be very sure 
that the second duty would be to pay one's taxes. 
This the early German did not do,^ but instead he 
made presents to his chieftain, sending him goodly 
gifts in corn or cattle. We know how long the excel- 
lent memory of monarchs treasured up this custom ; 
Queen Elizabeth, we are told, took care that what 
she received on a New Year's day should always 
largely exceed her own benefactions.^ Yet these gifts 
of the early German were presents pure and simple, 
no taxes, no prerogative of the prince. Even of 
booty and plunder in war the king might take no 
more than his share as a warrior, and the division 

1 Germ. XV. "^ Brand, Antiquities, " New Year's Daj'." 



290 GERMANIC ORIGINS , 

was not one of choice : all was left to the lots. It is 
on the margin between the old dispensation and the 
new rule of kings that we meet that famous vase of 
Soissons. A bishop asks the mighty leader of the 
Franks for a vase of extraordinary beauty which had 
been taken with other plunder from the church. The 
king promises it to the bishop if it fall to the royal 
lot — no very near chance ; however, he goes to his 
warriors and begs the vase as a favor to royalty, not 
at all as a right. The warriors assent ; but one man, 
striking the vase with his battle-axe, cries out, " Claim 
nothing but thy lot ! " The king takes no steps 
against this gross defiance, but contents himself with 
sending the vase to the bishop; until, at the next 
great assembly of the nation, and before the whole 
army, he fells the objector to the earth, crying, 
" That for thy blow upon the vase at Soissons I " 
No one dared a word or act of protest.^ """^v. 

Conquered land was at first shared in this fashion ;2 
but later, as among the Anglo-Saxons, the king took 
a special part for himself. The old maxim, how- 
ever, held the freeman exempt from all taxation: 
frei mann^ it said, frei gut? What was not exacted 
by direct law came, nevertheless, to be demanded 
by custom as well as by the growing importance of 
the king. In addition to yearly gifts, there was 
imposed upon freemen the necessity to entertain 
and harbor the sovereign with his retinue, to aid 
him in war, and to contribute horses and wagons 
for the royal need. Little by little, custom hard- 
ened into law and recognized the definite nature 
of taxes ; among the earliest of these direct burdens 

1 Gregor. Tur. II. 27. 2 jt. A. 246 f. 3 ibid. 297. 



GOVERNMENT AND LAW 291 

on land, Grimm counts the church tithes.^ Nor was 
this taxation, even in its milder form, altogether 
without the consent of the taxpayer. He was repre- 
sented, or else took a direct part, in the councils of 
his nation. Every freeman was member of this 
General Court.^ Whether these popular assemblies 
counted for more or for less than the royal authority, 
is a perplexing question, and historians have had no 
difficulty in seeing now a monarchy and now a re- 
public in the old Germanic communities. We do not 
know how far judicial and executive organization had 
made progress, nor how many elements of the modern 
state were present. Probably, when Tacitus wrote, 
there was a fairly organized government, — if such a 
name may be applied to a community so loosely 
united, — since it often took three days for the popu- 
lar assembly to come together at the season of new 
or full moon, and it is reasonable to suppose with 
Holtzmann that this could not have been the case 
with members of a single canton. Wider groups 
indicate firmer organization;^ probably we are not 
far out of the way when we assume that the early 
Germanic state inclined to democracy in peace and to 
a monarchy in war. The continental Saxon village 
had a sort of governor who ruled over his own dis- 
trict while peace was maintained: when war broke 
out, these governors, or, as Beda calls them, satraps, 

1 R. A. 300. 

2 For the later decline of the Germanic freeman, especially the Anglo- 
Saxon, see Stubbs, earlier pages ; and also Green, Short History, p. 90. 

3 See Stubbs, Const. Hist. I. 26 ff. ; Waitz, Verfassungsgesch. I. 
201 ff. ; and such works as Seebohm's Village Communities ; G. L. 
Gomme's Primitive Folk Moots ; and the valuable studies of Professor 
E. A. Freeman in books and essays. 



292 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

chose by lot one of their own number for the supreme 
command, which lasted until the close of hostilities.^ 

Popular government was clearly recognized even 
by the later kings, who went through the form of 
appealing to the great council for sanction of the 
royal deeds. In Beowulf we read of the Danish 
king sitting with his council in anxious deliberation 
how they may resist the attacks of Grendel.^ Alfred 
tells us that he drew up his code of laws with the 
advice of his Witan} Among the Saxons and Fri- 
sians, where Roman influence was never strong, and 
where we may find the origin of our own institutions, 
'' local self-government " seems to have been the rule 
whenever the nation was at peace. The northwest- 
ern districts of Germany have always shown more 
or less republican spirit; though an irresistible cur- 
rent swept them — with what difficulty, Charlemagne 
could tell — into the grasp of monarchy. This 
change and concentration of government is very 
marked. Dahn notes that at the great battle in 357, 
Alamannians had twelve so-called " kings," evidently 
mere local leaders; whereas in the fight against the 
Franks in 496 there was only one king of the 
Alamannians. 

In the time of Tacitus, general government rested 
in the assembly or moot (Anglo-Saxon, gemdf) of 
larger and smaller districts. The exact nature of 
these districts — canton, hundred, mark, community, 
what not — has been the subject of much discussion ; 
but it seems clear enough that representative bodies 
carried on such government, local or general, as ex- 

1 See the whole passage, Beda, Hist. Ecc. V. 10, and above, p. 271. 

2 Beow. Ill i. 3 Schmid, p. 68. 



GOVERNMENT AND LAW 292^ 

isted outside of the conduct of war. The folk-moot 
was the central fact of public life and public inter- 
ests ; 1 and the Campus Martins of the Carlovingians, 
the shire-moot, the town-meeting, are continued and 
different forms of the same old institution. The priv- 
ilege of belonging to this primitive body was rated 
high; the right of attendance was withdrawn from 
no freemen whatever save only those who had been 
guilty of the crime of crimes and had left their 
shields upon the field of battle .^ The meetings of the 
tribes were held at full or new moon ; ^ but for the 
larger assemblies, where a whole race convened, 
two meetings in the year were probably sufficient, 
and naturally coincided with the times of the great 
heathen feasts.* Daytime — " holy is the day " — 
was the legal limit of session. The summons for an 
extraordinary assembly may have been, as in later 
times, a stick, an arrow, or the like ; perhaps even a 
hammer for the court.^ The place of meeting was 
under the open sky, high and prominent ; and was at 
or near some place sacred to the gods — mountain, 
meadow, fountain, tree. Even the high-road was a 
favorite place. Local assemblies in England and 
elsewhere were held by preference under sacred and 
memorial trees, of which the chief are linden, oak, 
and ash.6 



1 Waitz, I. 338. 2 Prxcipuum fiagitiwn ; Tac. Germ. VI. 

3 The Anglo-Saxon hundred met monthly. Schmid, p. 595, under 
gemot. 

4 Lippert thinks the origin of the general council was the nomadic 
spring meeting of tribes before the herds were driven out to pasture. 
Christentum, Volksbrauch u. Volksglauhe, p. 583 ff. 

5 Waitz, I. 345 ; Kemble, Saxons, 1. 55. 

6 G. L. Gomme, Primitive Folk Moots. 



294 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

What was done at these assemblies? Naturally, 
business varied with the size and character of the 
gathering. Tacitus tells us of an embassy sent by 
one German tribe to another, and received in full 
assembly, where proposals were considered regarding 
a combined and systematic opposition to Roman 
rule.^ Further, we are told in the Giermania that 
important matters were discussed by the people, 
minor affairs by the chieftains ; and as in modern 
times, so then, we may be sure that influential men 
knew how to guide the sentiment of the meeting. 
Executive or presiding officers were few and of 
vague functions ; there was little need for such 
men when individual freedom was so great and the 
execution of law so limited. Of ancient origin, we 
may assume, was the town-reeve,^ for he is men- 
tioned among the old Saxons as the viUicus,^ which is 
the same as Alfred's tungerefa. He was probably 
elected by the smaller community, and presided over 
its councils : over the larger assembly presided a high 
official — prince or even king. 

The assembly was under the protection of the tri- 
bal gods, and was opened by a command of silence 
from the priests, who thus imposed conditions of 
peace upon the gathering. At the beginning of the 
Old Norse Vbluspa, " The Sibyl's Prophecy," we find 
this solemn call for silence on the part of all peace- 
loving mortals : " Be silent, all men, high and low." 
Moreover, the priests, as executives of divine com- 
mand, had power to punish such as might defy their 
authority, and through their persons insult the maj- 
esty of the patron gods. The session thus opened, 

1 Hist. IV. 64. 2 waitz, I. 136. ^ Beda, Hist. Ecc. V. 10. 



GOVERNMENT AND LAW 295 

distinguished men of the tribe are heard in behalf of 
whatever proposition is before the meeting. If the 
people approve a man's speech or recommendation, 
they clash their weapons lustily together ; if they dis- 
approve and dissent, there is an ominous murmur.^ 

Religious ceremonies were doubtless abundant at 
such a meeting. The custom of casting lots, de- 
scribed by Tacitus,^ is under the charge of the state- 
priest " if it is upon a public occasion." An example 
of the use of such lots in deciding a public question 
is quoted by Waitz^ from the Vita Ansharii. A 
king of Sweden consults the gods by lots to see 
whether or not he shall allow Anskar to bring for- 
ward his plea for Christianity. The judgment is 
favorable, and the king submits to his people the 
question of a new religion. Many other ceremonies 
of divination and enchantment even were doubtless 
common at such an assembly, but are more properly 
considered under the head of religious rites. 

Aside from religion and diplomacy, the business of 
these meetings must have partaken largely of a legal 
character.* With the exception of small villages, 
every district made a court out of its general assem- 
bly ; ^ and it is Grimm's opinion ^ that the whole assem- 
bly of freemen heard and judged such causes as came 
before them, — questions of public interest, transfer 
of land, settlement of personal disputes over propert}^, 
the enfranchisement of slaves, the award of wergild^ 
the ceremony of a free youth's admittance to the privi- 

1 Tac. Ger. XI. 2 n^id. x. 3 i. 350. 

4 Sir H. Maine says that the court of the Hundred is the oldest of the 
organized Germanic courts. Early Law and Custom, p. 169. 

5 Waitz, I. 339. ^ R. A. 745. 



296 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

leges of citizenship, and similar affairs. Something 
of this same sort was the Icelandic Thing. An ofQcer 
presided over the Germanic court, a sort of judge, 
whose token of ofQce was a staff, mostly white in 
color,^ and who often sat upon a conspicuous seat 
hewn out of stone. Some curious old laws enforce 
upon a popular judge that he shall sit with one leg 
over the other ; and other laws, not so curious, insist 
that he shall keep himself clear of drunkenness. In 
such courts of the historical period, the judge faced 
the east; on his right was the plaintiff, and on his 
left the defendant, who thus had to take the north, a 
quarter of bad omen.^ True, these are late customs, 
but their roots not improbably strike well into the 
most ancient judicial practice. Doubtless, too, many 
old ceremonies were retained b}^ the famous Vehm- 
gerieht of Westphalia, to which we have already 
referred, — that Vigilance Committee in the grand 
style which served as almost the only curb upon a 
lawless age ; which, like its prototype, the old Ger- 
manic assembly, held court under free sky, had 
no secret chambers, no tortures, and executed its 
decrees with unerring certainty by hanging the con- 
victed offender to the nearest living tree.^ Nor are 
the collections of Germanic law so very recent in 
date. The earliest codes were probably poetical 
(alliterative) in character so as to be more readily 
retained by the memory. The Goths had their 
system of laws ; but the earliest Germanic code pre- 
served to us is the Salic Law, about which so much 

1 R. A. 761. 2 72. A. 808. 

3 For a salutary rebuke of the nonsense written about Vehmgerichte, 
see Dr. Wachter's little book already cited, p. 63 f. 



GOVERNMENT AND LAW 297 

misunderstanding has been spread abroad: it dates 
from the fifth century. 

Although Tacitus is authority for the statement 
that priests were charged with the execution of de- 
crees, as well as with ordinary punishments, a recent 
writer is very decided in his assertion that common 
law as administered by these courts was a matter of 
tradition and the direct affair of each voting and 
deliberating freeman. Much of the sacredness at- 
taching to law, he says, has been the result of Chris- 
tianity and was foreign to our heathen system. Nor 
was there, he adds, any hieratic monopoly of law ; it 
was not kept, recorded, and interpreted by priests.- 
Nevertheless, we know on the authority of Tacitus 
that the priests were its executors, A pretty Frisian 
legend records the sacred sanction of law. King 
Karl orders twelve men to be chosen from Frisian 
land in order that they may determine what is law in 
Frisia. Unable to do as he bids, these twelve men 
beg a respite, but after a week are still in doubt. 
Then Karl declares them doomed to death, but allows 
them to be set in a boat without sail or oar, and ex- 
posed to the sea. They beg God for help and ask 
him to send a thirteenth man to them (as Christ was 
to the disciples) to teach them what they need to 
know. Suddenly this thirteenth one is sitting among 
them. He rows them to land with a bit of wood, 
strikes the ground and causes a spring of water to 
gush forth, and proceeds to teach them all the law. 
This, thinks Richthofen, points to the old heathen 
customs, when a priest set forth the law.^ Similar 

1 Von Amira in Paul's Grdr. II. 2. 41. 

2 Richthofen, Friesische Rechtsgeschichte, II. 456, 459, 488. 



298 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

conclusions may be drawn in regard to Iceland. 
This Asega, Judex, Sapiens, — by all these names 
the Frisian interpreter of law is called, — seems to 
have a genuine heathen pedigree ; he was the local 
magistrate of old.^ 

Cases of public punishment are given by Tacitus 
and have been mentioned here under the head of 
cowardice in war.^ The offender could be declared 
an outlaw, " vogelfreHI^ as in the case when a murderer 
refused to give satisfaction of any sort. Moreover, 
there remain in modern collections traces of older 
laws which prescribe frightful forms of death ; these 
horrors are nevertheless traditional and do not seem 
to have been enforced in historical times.^ But 
certain modes of execution, terrible enough, may be 
followed far back in Germanic records ; such were 
death on the wheel, decapitation, stoning, trampling 
to death by wild horses, burial alive, flinging from a 
rock, drowning, burning, exposure to wild animals, 
and, for coast-dwellers, sending to sea in a leaking 
boat. In the north, a barbarous custom called " carv- 
ing the eagle " — that is, on the back of the victim — 
finds frequent mention. Milder punishments were 
known, and records of the early middle ages tell of 
cutting off a victim's hair, which thus deprived him 
of his external sign of freedom ; whipping, — a pen- 

1 Richthofen, Friesische Eechtsgeschichte, 482. 2 Germ. XII. 

^ R. A. 682. Enforced, however, were the elaborate punishments for 
him who profaned a temple of the gods. In Frisian law such a criminal 
"ducitur ad mare, et in sabulo, quod accessus maris operire solet, fin- 
dun tur aures ejus et castratur, et immolatur diis quorum templa vio- 
lavit." Richthofen, Fries. Rechtsges. II. 507. Compare Tempest, 1. 1 : — 

would thou mightst lie drowning, 
The washing of ten tides. 



GOVERNMENT AND LAW 299 

alty reserved for slaves; flaying; cutting off hand 
and foot, nose, ears, or lips; blinding; cutting out 
the tongue; breaking out the teeth; branding, and 
other less violent foi^ms, down to a mere reproof 
by the proper authorities.^ The Anglo-Saxon laws 
are very explicit in the definition and gradation 
of crimes ; but while many penalties of mutilation 
occur, most of the punishments are in terms of 
money paid as fine and luergild. Adjustment of the 
ivergild must have taken up much of the time in 
these assembly-courts. Fines were assessed — about 
collection we cannot feel so sure — upon criminals of 
every grade; and great complication arose from the 
difference made in the amount according to the rank 
of the injured party. Even verbal injuries and attacks 
upon honor or reputation were punished by fine, and 
this in some of the early Anglo-Saxon codes ; to call 
a man a perjurer, for example, or to heap abuse upon 
him in the house of another, is punished by a fine of 
one shilling to the owner of the house, six shillings to 
the insulted person, and twelve shillings to the king.^ 
Should royalty be even remotely concerned, the fine 
is increased. '' If the king drink at a man's house 
and any one shall commit wrong there, this one is to 
pay double fine." — " If a freeman steal from the king, 
let him pay ninefold." ^ This is, of course, no crite- 
rion for primitive relations ; but we are distinctly told 
by Tacitus that the Germans of his day had a system 
of fines which were assessed in terms of cattle.* For 
less serious offences than those for which death was 
imposed, he says, there is a scale of punishments 

1 For details, R. A. 680 ff. 2 Schmid, p. 12, § 11. 

3 Laws of ^thelberht, Schmid, p. 2. •* Germ. XII. 



300 GERMAMC ORIGmS 

graded according to the crime, with fines in horses or 
cattle ; a part of these fines is paid to the king or to 
the community, a part to the injured person or his 
relatives. Thus we see a state of affairs distinctly 
analogous to the system of Anglo-Saxon codes. It 
is an Aryan tendency to distinguish carefully between 
crime and crime and to shade the punishment in heav- 
ier or lighter fashion. Even among the Franks, Salic 
law interposes to protect woman from insult, and lays 
fines upon the man who may take liberties with her 
person : according as he grasps her forearm or upper 
arm or touches her breast, he pays 1200, 1400, and 
1800 denarii^ and if he knocks off her head-dress, the 
fine is fifteen solidi?- Moreover, apart from the fine 
or " damages," which make restitution to the sufferer, 
there was something like our modern fine, the luite of 
Anglo-Saxon law, which had to be paid to the state. ^ 

The freeman, the citizen, was the person who 
made the laws and for whose sake they existed ; but 
there was a class of people outside the protection of 
law. Such were abandoned criminals in the first 
instance, and then those people who followed any 
despised occupation, the professional fighter or cham- 
pion, wandering minstrels and mountebanks, beg- 
gars, tramps ; later, illegitimate children ; and latest 
(towards the end of the middle ages), the hangman.^ 

Allusion has been made already to the shy advances 
undertaken by law upon the domain of feud and pri- 

1 Lex. Sal. c. 75. The late Thomas Wright quotes this and more iu 
his Womankind in Western Europe, p. 38. 

2 The relative amount of respect paid to law by the different Ger- 
manic tribes is not easy to fix. For general lawlessness the Franks 
must claim precedence. See Von Loebell, Gregor v. Tours, pp. 35-57. 

3 Von Amira in Paul's Grdr. II. 2. 123. 



GOVERNMENT AND LAW 301 

vate warfare. Among such advances we must count 
the duel and trial by battle ; these were in all probabil- 
ity carried on before the full assembly of the people. 
Tacitus tells us of a case where combat between two 
champions — a captive from one army, a soldier from 
the other — was thought to foreshadow the event of 
war, a sort of divination.^ Oaths, too, must have been 
taken, along with an appeal to heaven, when the com- 
bat was of a judicial nature. In Scandinavia, the 
accused as well as the accuser grasped the holy ring 
stained with sacrificial blood, and made oath ; while 
a late survival caused the same persons to swear 
upon the boar's head. 

Another ceremony which was probably carried out 
before one of these general assemblies was the ordeal.^ 
Jacob Grimm thinks that the ordeal, which concerns 
itself with past or present, just as the oracle is busied 
with the future, was of remote heathen origin ;3 and 
Mr. E. B. Tylor approves Jamieson's derivation of 
our phrase " to haul over the coals " from the time- 
honored rite of passing through the fire.* The grave 
injustice of the ordeal, falling heavily upon accused 
persons, who were dependent on a miracle for the 
establishment of their innocence, has led Grimm to 
the conclusion that the early middle ages seldom 
applied this test in the case of freemen. A freeman 
took oath of innocence; while the slave and the 
dependent were driven to the terrors of the ordeal. 
Precisely so, in later days, it was the witches, mostly 

1 Germ. X. 

2 See Dahn, Bausteine, II. 1-75, " Studieu zur Geschichte der ger- 
man. Gottesurtheile." 

3 R. A. 909. 4 Primitive Culture, I. 85. 



302 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

from the poorest classes of the population, who were 
compelled to undergo the ordeal by water or by 
fire. In the old heathen times, however, it must 
have been prescribed for all classes of society. A 
queen herself submits to it in what has been called 
"the best and earliest description of a heathen 
ordeal." It is Gudrun purging herself from the 
charge of adultery. In sight of the court, — " seven 
hundred men came into the hall to see the king's 
wife deal with the cauldron," — she dips her hand 
to the bottom of the boiling water, and unhurt takes 
out the stones. Then the accuser is forced to undergo 
the trial, and is badly scalded.^ The ordeal was so 
strongly founded upon popular approval that the 
church was forced to recognize it along with many 
another suspicious ceremony .^ 

Of the different kinds of ordeal, we may note the 
thrusting of one's hand directly into the fire, walking 
through the flames, seizing a red-hot iron with naked 
hand; fetching with bared arm a stone or ring from 
the bottom of a kettle filled with boiling water; being 
flung into pond or river, with the condition that float- 
ing means guilt and sinking innocence, — an alterna- 
tive mocked in certain verses of Kudibras; and pass- 
ing before the corpse of a murdered man, with the 
expectation that the body will begin to bleed at the 
approach of the murderer, — as in the Nibelungen 

1 Vigfusson-Powell, C. P. B. I. 322 f., 561. 

2 A Frisian legend makes the " good" King Karl and the heathen 
King Redbad enter upon an ordeal to decide ownership of Frisian terri- 
tory : who can longer remain still shall conquer. Twelve hours long 
they stand motionless. Then Karl drops his glove; Redbad picks it up, 
and loses, as Karl exclaims, " Thou art my ' man '! " See Richthofen, 
Fries. Eechtsges. II. 418. 



GOVERNMENT AND LAW 303 

Lay, where Siegfried lies upon the bier, and the kings, 
and Hagen his murderer, enter the church : — 

And all denied the murder ; but Kriemhilt cried in teen, — 
" Whoso would prove him guiltless may let it now be seen. 
In presence of the people let him approach the bier, 
And stand before the murdered man, and truth shall then be 
clear." 

That is a mickle wonder, whene'er before the dead 
(Ye see it yet full often) the murderer is led. 
Again the wounds gin bleeding : and so it happened here. 
The guilt of Hagen on this wise right plainly did appear. 

The wounds they fell a-bleeding, as they had done before. . . . ^ 

The Anglo-Saxon laws show the ordeal purely as 
an appeal to God's judgment, and prescribe various 
religious preparations in addition to the judicial pro- 
cedure.2 The most remarkable of these Old English 
ordeals was the so-called corsnced, where a piece of 
bread or cheese — later it was the consecrated bread 
of the church — was swallowed by the accused, with 
the idea that a guilty person must choke in the 
attempt. It was noted whether the swallower trembled 
and turned pale in his attempt; and a prayer was 
often put up that if he was guilty, liis throat and 
digestive organs might fail to perform their office.^ 

The foregoing tests require but one person : the 
trial by battle brought both parties into action. 

1 iV. L. 984. See also R. A. 930 f. Familiar, too, is the scene in 
Shakspere's Richard III., I. 2, where King Henry's corpse bleeds at 
the approach of his murderer. 

2 Schmid, s.v. orddl, and references, especially pp. 144 and 416 ff. 
For the Greek use of this ceremony, see the well-known passage of the 
Antigone, 264 ff. 

3 " Fac eum, domine, in visceribus angustari, ejus guttur conclude," 
etc. 



804 GERMAXIC ORIGINS 

Grimm records a form of duel where physical en- 
durance decided the cause. In heathen times this 
was probably a test to see which of two persons 
could longer sustain the hands and arms aloft. In 
Christian practice, this was changed to the custom of 
standing with uplifted hands by a cross, the judicium 
crucis. We have noted above Karl's contest with 
Redbad, where the test was to stand motionless as 
long as possible. 



THE FUNERAL 305 



CHAPTER XI 

THE FUNERAL 

The weapon-death — Burning and burial — The former a primi- 
tive Germanic habit — The mound or barrow — Its position — What 
was bui-nt or buried with the dead — Sacrifice of the living — Ship- 
burials — The land of souls — Germanic horror of the grave — The 
elegiac mood in our poetry — Games and feasts at the funeral — 
Ceremonies at the burial of Attila and of Beowulf. 

Death, we have already seen, came to the Ger- 
man upon the battle-field, in the feud, and at sea ; but 
nowhere so dreaded as where it found him in his bed, 
— the "straw-death," as he called it. Men who die 
thus inglorious are doomed to tread wet and chill and 
dusky ways to the land of Hel. Old warriors of the 
Viking age, when caught by illness, gashed them- 
selves with Odin's spear, and so bought " Valhalla " 
with their blood.i Of the various paths to death, old 
age had the worst adjectives. A passage in BSowuJf 
preserves some of the primitive sentiment, though the 
note of sermonizing has slipped in and given a modern 
tone to the whole : — 

1 The earlier belief gave all dead to Hel, and later to Thor. Odin 
is the Viking god. See Schullerus in P. B. Beit. XII. 246, and Petersen, 
Om Nor dbo ernes Gudedyrkehe og Gudetro i Hedenold, p. 90 ff. For 
another notion, which worked against mutilated bodies, see Tylor, 
Primitive Culture, II. 87. 



306 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Soon shall it be 
that sword or sickness will steal thy power, 
or fang of the fire, or flood's o'erwhelming, 
gripe of the falchion, or flight of spear, 
or odious age ; or the eyes' clear beam 
wax dull and darken. ^ 

A famous passage of the poetic Edda ^ mentions the 
different deaths which men may die. " I counsel thee 
ninthly," says Sigrdrifa to Sigurd, "that thou give 
the dead man burial no matter where thou shalt find 
him, he he sick-dead^ or sea-dead or weapon-dead. . . ." 
The sea-death came often enough to these northern 
pirates, and was by no means without honor. But it 
is the weapon-dead who fare straightway to Odin ; 
un was ted by sickness, in the full strength of man- 
hood, they leap mailed and armed into the new life. 
This feeling about the compensations of a warrior's 
death is still abroad, and is not yet a mere sentiment. 
The Horatian maxim was certainly more than senti- 
ment, — it was Roman faith and Roman pride ; and 
there is even for us something full-blooded about 
those adjectives dulce et decorum. The warrior in 
Germanic times had the stateliest funeral ; his arms, 
and often his wife and slaves, gave him fitting escort 
to the other world. A violent death of almost any 
kind was the only aristocratic way to leave life in 
Scandinavia. Suicide was honorable when under- 
taken from motives which men then deemed proper, 
and is a matter of frequent occurrence in Old Norse 
annals. 

As regards the funeral rites of the German, we are 

1 Beoio. 1763 ff. 2 Sigrdrifumdl, 33, ed. Hildebrand. 



THE FUNERAL 307 

not Avithout fairly copious sources of information.^ 
Burial and burning of the corpse alternate in history, 
and are conditioned by the circumstances of a given 
tribe. " The soberest nations," says Sir Thomas 
Browne in his Ry driotaphia^ " have rested in two 
ways, of simple inhumation and burning," while he 
asserts that " carnal interment . . . was of the elder 
date." It is curious, by the way, to compare the 
fantastic reasons given by Sir Thomas for these prac- 
tices, with the poetical explanation of the German 
scholar and romanticist, Jacob Grimm. " Some being 
of the opinion of Thales, that water was the original 
of all things, thought it most equal to submit unto 
the principle of putrefaction, and conclude in a moist 
relentment. Others conceived it most natural to end 
in fire, as due unto the master principle in the com- 
position . . . and therefore heaped up large piles, more 
actively to waft them toward that element. ..." 
Grimm, too, regards burial as the primitive custom, 
and gives it a poetic motive, — the body sinks to the 
mother of all things, earth ; whereas by fire the soul 
soars in flame to the father, to Jupiter .^ Burning, he 
therefore concludes, shows a higher stage of culture ; 
and he connects with this custom the formation of a 
belief in the end of the world through fire. On the 
other hand, burial would often be a necessity, — after 
a battle, or in a country destitute of wood. Where 
the two customs existed side by side, burning was for 

1 The best summary is J. Grimm, iiher das Verbrennen der Leichen, 
an admirable paper, read before the Berlin Academy in 1849. Kl. Schr. 
II. 211 ff. 

2 Work quoted, p. 214 f. One involuntarily recalls Goethe's sympa- 
thetic ballad, Der Gott und die, Bajadere, with its fine ending; and 
Grimm quotes the conclusion of the same poet's Braut von Corinth. 



308 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the ricli and burial for the poor. A nomadic folk 
tends to burn, an agricultural folk to bury. The 
stone age probably buried,^ thinks Grimm, the bronze 
age burnt, while the age of iron returned to burial. In 
broader generalization, the heathen races have mostly 
preferred to burn their dead, while Christians incline 
to burial. The importance of some sort of funeral 
rites was conceded by primitive man ; only the 
roughest tribes have left the bodies of their dead to 
dogs and birds of prey, — a fearful fate reserved for 
conquered warriors, and familiar in the Iliad and in 
our Anglo-Saxon poetry. The old Persians, how- 
ever, treated their dead in this way, and some Mon- 
golians still keep up the practice ; but for these latter 
there are explanations in the theories of soul-cult, 
advanced by modern anthropology. One thing is 
quite certain : our Germanic ancestors burned their 
dead.2 

To Tacitus, the Germanic funeral ceremonies 
seemed simple in the extreme. But there was 
probably more meant and more carried out than met 
his ear; and we must remember the extraordinary 
pomp and circumstance of funerals at Rome. Caesar 
testifies ^ that Gallic funerals were very sumptuous ; but 
the only peculiar custom which Tacitus finds worthy 
of notice in German ic rites is the use of certain kinds 
of wood for the funeral-pile of illustrious men. No 
costly coverings, he says, are used, no spices ; but the 

1 Certainly did, says Montelius, Civilization of Sweden in Ancient 
Times, trans. Woods, p. 35. 

2 Swedish graves of the early iron age show both burnt and unburnt 
bodies. In the boat-burials bodies were now burnt, now unburnt. Mon- 
telius, pp. 122-139. 

3 B. G. VI. 19, " funera . . . magnil&ca et sumptuosa." 



THE FUNERAL 309 

arms, and often the horse, of the warrior are given 
with him to the flames. The grave is ^ then marked 
by a mound of turf.^ While the funeral was less 
splendid than those sung in some of our early epics, 
— as in Beoividf^ — there is no doubt that it was of 
the highest importance ; for in another place,^ Tacitus 
tells us that even amid the most desperate battles Ger- 
mans were wont to carry away (to the rear) the bodies 
of their dead. That the Germans burnt their dead was 
natural enough for people shut in among such cre- 
mating races as the Gauls, Romans, Greeks, Thracians, 
Lithuanians, and Slavonic tribes. ^ Christianity cleaves 
to burial, not only because Christ's stay in the sep- 
ulchre hallowed it, but from Old Testament pre- 
cedents. In the third century burning of the dead 
had ceased in Rome, and in the fourth century it was 
there spoken of as a matter of antiquity. Charle- 
magne, in an edict for the Saxons, made burning of 
corpses a capital offence, and Boniface worked against 
it, as against the eating of horse-flesh, — pagan prac- 
tices both.* Certain names of places in England 
preserve traces of the old custom ; such are AdesMm^ 
in Kent, — now Adisham, — where Ad certainly 
means funeral pile ; and BcdesheorJi in Gloucester- 
shire.^ Kemble quotes the Orvar Oddr Saga, where 
the hero gives direction for his funeral. Men are to 
make a stone trough and take it to the wood : " There, 

1 Tac. Germ. XXVII. The rest is rhetoric. 2 ibid. VI. 

3 J. Griram, work quoted, p. 241. 

^"Jubemus," says Charlemagne, " ut corpora Christianorum Sax- 
onorum ad cimeteria ecclesise deferantur, et non ad tumulos Paga- 
norum." 

5 Given by Kemble in his Horse Ferales, p. 119 f. in an essay on 
" Burial and Cremation." 



310 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

when I am dead, I am to lie in fire and burn up 
entirely." Oddr, we must remember, was a convert 
to Christianity. For a long time converts used a 
certain amount of fire in funeral rites, as if insuring 
themselves the advantages of both systems. More- 
over, when the custom of burial had superseded the 
heathen funeral pile, choice and nature of the grave- 
mound remained for a long time under control of 
private persons. Not, thinks Kemble,^ till the clergy 
saw decided power and profit involved in the super- 
intendence of funeral ceremonies — say about the end 
of the ninth century — were regular churchyards 
established in England. The Anglo-Saxon loved to 
be buried in a chosen place — by a stream, or on some 
headland that looked out far over the ocean.^ Grimm, 
in another interesting paper,^ notes the antiquity of 
such choice of burial-sites. In days when corpses were 
burned, the ashes were committed to a huge mound 
or barrow, sometimes by the great military highway, 
or by the ford of the river, if inland, or else on the 
shore of the sea. Greek, Roman, and Saxon examples 
show a common trait. In the Odyssey, we have a 
description of the burial of Achilles.* " So thou wert 
burned in the garments of the gods, and in much 
unguents and in sweet honey, and many heroes of the 
Achseans moved mail-dad around the pyre where thou 
wast burning^ both foot-men and horse, and great was 
the noise that arose. But when the flame of Hephaes- 
tus had utterly abolished thee, lo, in the morning we 

1 Work quoted, p. 109. 

2 For these lofty burial sites in Scandinavia, see Weinhold, Altnord. 
Lehen, p. 498, note, and Montelius, p. 85. 3 KL Schr. VII. 406 ff. 

4 Bk. 24 ; the translation is that of Butcher and Lang. 



THE FUNERAL 311 

gathered together thy white bones, Achilles, and be- 
stowed them in unmixed wine and in unguents. Thy 
mother gave a twy-handled golden urn. . . . Therein 
lie thy white bones. . . . Then over them did we 
pile a great and goodly tomb, . . . high on a jutting 
headland over wide Hellespont^ that it might be far 
seen from off the sea by men that now are and by 
those that shall be hereafter." In the same way 
Elpenor asks Odysseus to burn him with his armor, 
and " pile him a barrow on the shore of the gray sea 
. . . that even men unborn may hear his story " ; and 
jEneas buries the ashes of his friend Misenus in a 
huge mound 1 on a headland of the sea. Such burial- 
sites are often mentioned in the Norwegian, Swedish, 
and Icelandic sagas. Grimm finds " hohe Poesie " in 
the account of Yngwar's burial-place. " The Baltic 
sings a joyous wave-song to lull the Swedish hero ; 
the sleeper in the hill hears the billows breaking 
near him, and their murmur cheers his loneliness." 
Burial in such conspicuous places is easily proved for 
Anglo-Saxon times. Taking first the antiquary's 
evidence, we may note the " fine Saxon barrow," " on 
a bold conical hill overlooking Folkestone in Kent." ^ 
Further, " the hill of Osengal, overlooking Pegwell 
Bay near Ramsgate, and furnishing a magnificent 
view of the Channel, ... is perforated like a honey- 
comb with the graves of an immense Saxon cemetery." ^ 
Finally, we have the testimony of our old epos. Says 
the dying Beowulf to his young kinsman Wiglaf :* — 

1 " Ingenti mole." See Odysseij, XL 56 ff., Verg. yEn. VI. 232, and 
Grimm, work quoted. 

2 T. Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 469. 

3 Ibid. 470. 4 2802 ff . 



312 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Bid the battle-famed build me a mound, 
bright after bale ^ on a brow of the coast ; 
this as a token to tribes of mine 
on Whale-Headland high shall tower, 
by ocean-wanderers ever called 
Beowulf's Barrow, when back from far 
they drive their keels o'er the dusky sea. 

Kemble remarks ^ that the inlaiKl tumuli or bar- 
rows are often used in old charters as the boundaries 
of Anglo-Saxon estates. These ancient documents 
either couple with the mention of the mound the 
adjective " heathen," or else give a name of the per- 
son who lies in the tomb, and probably, as Kemble 
argues, was a Christian. Ordinarily, we have either 
simply "the heathen barrow," or else "Hoce's bar- 
row " ; but in a charter of the year 976, we read : 
" Thence to the heathen ' burial ' (tomb) ; thence 
westward to the boundary where ^Ifstdn lies in 
heathen barrow." This, Kemble takes to signify the 
burial of a Christian in the midst of old heathen 
graves. Poetry easily laid hold of these places, and 
gave them that needful touch of the mystic and un- 
canny. In a remarkable passage of Salomon and 
Saturn,^ there is sometliing of the later romantic 
shudder, as well as a good movement of the verse : — 

His sword well-burnisht shineth yet, 
and over the harrow beam the hilts.^ 

The study of primitive culture leads us to the 
conclusion that burials, whether of the body or of 

1 I.e. after the funeral pile is burnt. 2 Work quoted, p. 110. 

3 Kemble's ed. p. 156. See p. 248, above. 

4 Of course souls often appear over their graves in the shape of 
flame. So Angantyr and his brothers in the Hervararsaga. See Mogk, 
in Paul's Grdr. 1. 1012. 



THE FUNERAL 313 

the ashes left from the funeral-pile, began in or near 
the home itself. Survivals and traditions point this 
way, even if we neglect the study of savage customs. 
Thus Alboin was buried in Italy under the steps of a 
palace, and with him were his arms and ornaments.^ 
Primitive races have buried their dead under the 
threshold, with a general feeling that the spirit will 
protect its former home. Here, however, we note a 
curious conflict between two ideas, — the desire to 
keep a spirit near one's home and so enjoy the benefits 
of its protection, and the fear of evil influences pro- 
ceeding from such hovering souls. A half-way dual- 
ism prompts us to call for aid upon the shades of our 
fathers, and j^-et at other times to conjure into peace 
the perturbed spirit, and bid it cease to haunt us. 
Men placed for these spirits the little offering of 
meat or wine ; and even yet a prevalent superstition 
forbids the carrying out of a corpse through door or 
window: there must be a hole cut for it through the 
wall, or it must at least take some unwonted way of 
egress .2 It was once common with German peasants 
to bury the dead man in the house where he had 
lived; ^ it is still custom in many places to open doors 
and windows of the sick-room where one has just died, 
— let the soul fly off and rid the survivors of an un- 
welcome presence. The tomb reared over a grave is 
itself originally nothing more nor less than a house, 
and the home of the dead was like the home of the 

1 Paul. Diac. II. 28. 

2 Weinhold's {Altnord. Leben, p. 476) facts are true, but his theory is 
false. Not because the corpse is " unclean " is this exit chosen; it is 
to keep the spirit from finding its way back. 

3 Henning, das deutsche Haus (Quellen und Forschungen, No. 47), 
p. 37. 



314 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

living. The Egyptians carried this idea to its most 
elaborate conclusion. So arose the temple, say some, 
in Greece ; it was the house built over the grave of a 
hero. Lippert even asserts that the whole doctrine 
of an under- world originated with graves, the sub- 
terranean homes of the dead.^ Trees were planted 
about such a grave, and the sacred grove grew up 
about the resting-place of powerful ancestors, or of 
the deified founder of the race itself. Such groves 
are mentioned in Bugge's text of the Harhardsli6'6 : ^ 
" When didst thou learn these things ? " asks Thor ; 
andHarbard (= Odin) answers: "From the old folk 
I took them, the people who live in the woods." 
Graves were sometimes used as treasure houses 
which the ancestral spirit could guard ; or else they 
served as a meeting-place,^ and the folk met there 
for councils, courts, and the like. Kemble* says that 
Cwichelmes Hlsew, one of the most commanding 
barrows in England, was in the eleventh century seat 
of the shire-court. Tradition, moreover, told of former 
pagan rites at Enta Hlsew and Scuccan Hl^w, the 
Giants' Barrow and the Devil's Barrow. There were 
no regular council-halls for Germanic chieftains until 
the time of Charlemagne ; but a bit of enclosed land, 
the shade of a tree, an ancient sepulchre, were favorite 
places. In the same way, this notion of the grave 
acted upon its own inner arrangement; for a tomb 
was found in Bavaria with five skeletons "seated 

1 Religion der eurojJdischen Culturstcimme, p. 10. 

2 Hildebraud has haugum instead of skdgum, and thus reads: "the 
people who live in the mounds or graves of home." 

3 Weinhold, Altnord. Leben, p. 499. 

4 Horse Fercdes, p. 116. We noted the love of Germans for high or 
conspicuous sites for their courts and councils. 



THE FUNERAL 315 

about a vessel, by the side of which lay two long iron 
knives." ^ 

There can be no doubt that the heathen Anglo- 
Saxons first burnt, and then buried, their dead. 
Grimm collects the evidence of our old poetry, and 
the results of antiquarian research only confirm us 
in our belief. That the thanes of Beowulf are or- 
dered to bring from far the "balewood," supports the 
statement of Tacitus, that distinguished men were 
burnt on a funeral-pile made of certain kinds of 
wood. Moreover, we have an epic formula in Anglo- 
Saxon used as a variant or " kenning," for the simple 
notion of dying. Instead of " dies " a man " chooses 
the funeral-pile," — seeks it, goes to it.^ Two such 
burnings are described in Beowulf^ — that of the hero, 
and that of Hnsef the Dane. 

We learn from these descriptions how familiar and 
necessary seemed to the Anglo-Saxons the burning of 
their dead. We see how the funeral-pile was hung 
with weapons and shields ; and how when the mound 
had been raised, it was surrounded with a wall, and 
furnished like a mortal's own house, with rings and 
treasure and whatsoever gladdens the heart of men 
as they sit secure in their hall. Ornaments, weapons, 
horse, slave, spouse, — all these were needed by the 
warrior in his life, and a simple logic concluded his 
need of them in what was literally the other world. 
All this is strange to modern notions, or at best exists 
in shadowy survival. Till late in the middle ages 
a knight's best steed was killed when its owner died ; 
nowadays, we lead the favorite war-horse in the fune- 

1 Lippert, Rel. d. eur. Cult. p. 148. 

2 Cf. Bioio. 2818, " ffir he l)£el cure." 



316 GERMANIC ORIGINS ^ 

ral procession. In some places of Germany, only a 
few years ago, the custom prevailed of putting comb, 
razor, and soap, into a man's coffin.^ Suggestive is 
the lingering habit of giving the dead man a pair of 
stout shoes ; for the way that led to the land of 
spirits might Avell be rough. In Scandinavia, it was 
the custom for a near relative to fasten these shoes 
firmly to the feet of the corpse. ^ Often a staff was 
added; and in the great majority of cases food and 
drink were provided, ghostly viaticum^ found in count- 
less graves. Corn, fruit, and the like are favorites ; 
and Kemble ^ mentions the Saxon fondness for hazel- 
nuts. In modern Sweden, they give the dead man his 
tobacco-pipe, pen-knife, and a flask of brandy ; * while 
even in ancient Sweden it was considered proper to 
give him draughts and dice to beguile the weariness 
of his journey.^ But kings, and men of might must 
not be left to walk ; and the horse plays a great part 
in legends which have to do with graves. Such is the 
Danish Helhest. Says Thiele : ^ "In the old times, 
they used to bury in every churchyard, before any hu- 
man body was interred, a living horse.'' This horse, 
which, of course, haunts the place as a terror to evil- 
doers, is often headless, or three-legged, or what not ; 
now it is white, now black. In Germany the Schim- 
mel or white horse plays a similar r61e ; and he is 

1 Kuhn and Schwartz, Nordd. Sagen, p. 435. Visitors to the famous 
Museum of Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen remember the pathetic 
sight of that body from the moor, so well preserved, and the little 
wooden comb withal. But it is a fine head of hair, and deserves the 
vanity. 

2 Weinhold, A. L. 494. 3 jjorx Fercdes, p. 69. 

4 Weinhold, A. L. p. 493. ^ Montelius, p. 122, in earlier iron age. 
6 Danmarks Folkesagn, II. 293. 



THE FUNERAL 317 

known even in far Arabia. In another tale,^ Tliiele 
mentions the belief that great store of treasure can 
be raised from a grave where a " gold-horse," or " a 
gold-prince on horsehach^'^ lies buried. Some workmen 
once saw a grave open — it was known to contain a 
mass of treasure — " and a large man on horseback, 
with glittering buttons in his coat, rode out of the 
portal of the mound." The prosaic theory of Lippert, 
that most of the dragon stories are due to the old 
habit of burying treasure with the dead, and to the 
natural desire to frighten off plunderers, is, to be 
sure, wholly inadequate as a solution of the dragon- 
and-treasure problem, but has none the less its proba- 
ble features. The legends of buried treasure, of 
ghosts who must " walk," because they have up- 
hoarded in their life " extorted treasure in the womb 
of earth," have surely some relation to these old bur- 
ials. It seems fair to suppose that the angry spirit- 
tenant of the mound might well have his share, 
though not the sole proprietorship, in the manu- 
facture of dragon-myths. There is no doubt that 
graves were often rifled ; we can see how the Viking 
ship at Christiania has been broken and plundered. 
Often, too, the grave was opened by a member of the 
family, or even by the state, and a loan or contribu- 
tion was forced from the dead capitalist. Kemble, 
in the interesting work above quoted, speaking of 
the barrows often named as boundary-marks in the 
old charters, points out an interesting phrase : " t6 
])am brocenan beorge," to the hrolcen harroiv. Another 
is, " westward of the barrow that has been dug into." 
Horse and treasure do not exhaust the possibilities, 

1 I. 348. 



318 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

and sometimes a chariot was added, that the spirit 
might make his way to Yalhalla in still greater state. 
Grimm 1 instances the burial of King Harald, after 
the great battle of Bravalla.^ Conquered and slain 
in battle, he was sumptuously buried by the vic- 
torious King Hring. Harald's body was washed, 
clad in armor, laid upon the chariot of King Hring, 
and so driven into the mound. The horse was killed, 
and the conqueror laid beside it his own saddle, and 
cried to the dead king: "Now thou canst ride to 
Yalhalla, or drive there, as thou wilt ! " Before the 
mound was closed, all the warriors threw in rings 
and costly weapons. Another account of the same 
occurrence says that the body was first burned, and 
this would be the oldest version ; but even when the 
burning of the corpse was forgotten, men clung to 
the accessories of horse and chariot. Besides horses, 
we often hear of the burning or slaying of dogs and 
falcons. Le roi s'amuse. 

Above all other possessions which must go with 
the dead warrior, stood his weapons, and of his wea- 
pons, the sword. We see nothing out of the way 
when a general or a military monarch is buried with 
sword at his side. Thus armed, the French soldier 
in Heine's well-known poem was fain to lie in his 
grave and wait till his emperor came back again. 
The legends and sagas show us how stubbornly the 
dead hand of a German warrior was clasped about 
his sword. Thiele ^ gives the Danish legend of King 
Hiarne who was buried on an island with his thirty 
thanes about him. By accident his sword was dug 
up, and a man named Niels 0stergaard carried it 

1 Work quoted, p. 271. 2 About 790 a.d. 3 Work quoted, I. 13. 



THE FUNERAL 819 

home. But from that time Niels had no luck, and 
all went wrong in his house. At last he carried back 
the sword, and buried it ; and since then no one has 
disturbed King Hiarne's tomb. Still more demonstra- 
tion was made by the robbed sword of the great 
Holger Danske, which took twelve horses to drag it 
away, and in the house where it was laid caused such 
terrible commotion and shaking of walls, that people 
were fain to haul back the sword to its place ; and 
this time it needed only two horses.^ There are 
many similar legends. It is needless to dwell on the 
survivals of this custom of giving precious possessions 
along with the dead. Instead of burying or burning 
treasure, the Chinese burn paper which represents 
it. Among the Western nations we have the penny 
put in the mouth of a dead man. Modern instances 
would not be far to seek, though entirely confined to 
ornament. 

The darker side of this picture is familiar enough. 
Not only tool or ornament or weapon, — the living 
went down with the dead. This sharing of a husband's 
or a master's death might be voluntary or involuntary. 
Often the wife esteemed it her privilege as well as 
her duty to die upon the funeral-pile of her lord ; and 
in the famous legend which impressed so strongly the 
imagination of our Germanic race and gave it its one 
great epos, when Brynhild's jealousy has slain Sigurd, 
her love for him prompts her to share his grave. The 
story of her fate is told in the verse of the Sigur^ark- 
vi^a? and in the prose of the VoUung saga.^ The 

1 Thiele, I. 20. 2 Edda, ed. Hildebrand, pu 234 f. 

8 Chap. 31. A translation of the poetical version, with attempted 
restoration of the missing words, will be found in Vigfusson and Pow- 
ell's Corpus, I. 302 f. 



320 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

latter is given here because free from the gaps of the 
older version : " Now I beg thee, Gunnar, one thing, 
and it is the last I shall beg of thee," — it is Bryn- 
hild who addresses her husband. "Make a great 
funeral-pyre for all of us upon the mound, for me 
and Sigurd and all that are slain along with him. 
Cover it with human blood, and burn me there by 
the side of the Hunnish king ; and on his other side 
my men, — two at his head, two at his feet, and two 
hawks. . . . The doors ^ shall not fall upon his heels 
where I follow him; and our retinue is no sorry one 
when five handmaidens and eight serving-men, whom 
my father gave me, follow him, and they too are 
burnt who are slain along with Sigurd. . . . Now 
was Sigurd's corse cared for in the ancient fashion, 
and a huge funeral-pile was built. And when that 
towered so high that it could be seen from far, they 
laid upon it the bodies of Sigurd and his three-year- 
old son, whom Brynhild had caused to be slain, and 
also the corpse of Gothorm, who had murdered Sigurd. 
And when the flames were hot, went forth Brynhild. 
She said to her handmaidens they might take her 
gold, and she died, and she was burnt there along 
with Sigurd, and so her life was done." Less pas- 
sionate, but full of quiet devotion, are the words of 
the wife of old Nial : " Young I was married to Nial, 
and I have promised him that one fate should take us 
both." She refuses to leave the burning house, and 
dies with her husband. Wherever we turn in an- 
cient history, examples of this custom press upon us. 
The modern school of criticism is not inclined to lean 
on poetry or sentiment in its explanations of these 

1 Of Hel's domain. 



THE FUNERAL 321 

sombre rites ; and even a philologist like Hehn finds 
Grimm's treatment far too romantic.^ Through these 
rifts in the fabric of our old culture we catch glimpses 
of the sheer brutality and indifference to human life 
which marked the earliest stages of primitive religious 
systems. Hehn collects a mass of examples. We 
remember that Achilles offered to the shade of Pa- 
troclus not only horses and dogs, but twelve young 
Trojans whom he had captured for the purpose ; and 
on his own grave, in after days, Polyxena was burned. 
In some countries the wife was expected to hang her- 
self at the grave of her husband. Most cruel, per- 
haps, was the Scythian custom.^ When the king 
dies, one of his wives is strangled and buried with 
him, likewise a number of servants and horses. On 
the anniversary of his death, fifty slaves, whom he 
had chosen for the purpose, and fifty choice horses 
are treated in the same manner. The burial of Alaric 
the Goth is familiar to readers of Gibbon. Boniface, 
in a letter to the king of Mercia, about 745 A.D., 
describes the custom among the Wends : the wife is 
buried with her husband. As regards the sacrificial 
side of this custom, we shall have more to say in the 
consideration of Germanic religion. 

Whatever is sanctioned by religion and dateless 
custom comes to be regarded as a virtue, and finds 
willing devotees. Possibly some of the more impor- 
tant ceremonies and duties of modern life will one day 
be counted in the list of painful superstitions; but, 
however that may be, the voluntary death of a wife 
at her husband's funeral was reckoned among the 
conspicuous virtues of the Germanic woman. Hakon 

1 Hehn, work quoted, p. 440. 2 Hehn ; and Herodotus, 4. 71 f. 



322 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Jarl was refused in his old age by Gunnhild because 
she would in all probability have early occasion to 
die with him. Nor was the tie of husband and wife 
the only one which called for such a sacrifice. Sons, 
as in the case of Sigurd, or brothers, were chosen as 
the victims ; and the bonds of friendship and love 
were often hallowed by a sense of similar obligation. 
Cases can be found where two men agree that should 
either die, the other will straightway follow. True 
lovers, in countless tales and ballads of a later time, 
die at the selfsame moment ; instead of the old min- 
gling ashes, they are buried side by side, and two 
rose trees spring through the turf and twine lovingly 
together. 

On the general subject of burial, there is little to 
say. To cover the corpse, even of one's bitterest foe, 
was a custom in Iceland whose breach might lead to 
banishment.^ No pious Scandinavian passed a corpse 
without tossing a bit of turf or a stone upon it by 
way of covering ; and since this corresponds so closely 
to the well-known classical traditions, it seems reason- 
able to infer for the whole Germanic race a general 
sense of the immense importance of funeral-rites. 
We have no reason to suppose that women and chil- 
dren were refused the ceremonies which are told of 
kings and warriors and peasants. Cases of the fune- 
ral-rites of women are on record ; and skeletons of 
children have been found in circumstances that abun- 
dantly justify the conclusion .^ 

Full of a weird interest are the ship-burials of our 
sea-loving ancestors. Let us first hear how the white 
god Balder was burnt Viking-wise upon his ship. 

1 Weinhold, Altnord. Leben, p. 474. - Ibid. p. 482. 



THE FUNERAL 323 

'' Then the ^sir took Balder's corpse and bore it to 
the sea. The name of Balder's ship was Hringhorni; 
it was the greatest of all ships. The gods were fain 
to push it from shore and make thereon Balder's 
balefire, but the ship would not move. Then they 
sent to Jotunheim after the giantess who is called 
Hyrrokin ; when she came, she rode a wolf and had a 
snake for its bridle ; when she leaped from the steed, 
Odin called up four Berserkers and bade them hold 
it, but they could do this only by felling it to the 
ground. Then Hyrrokin stept to the bow of the 
boat, and with her first thrust she pushed it so 
that fire flashed from the rollers and all lands 
trembled. That made Thor angry, and he grasped 
his hammer and would have shattered her head, had 
not all the gods asked peace for her. Then Balder's 
corpse was borne out to the ship, and when his wife, 
Nanna, daughter of Nep, saw that, she burst for grief 
and died. Then she was carried to the funeral-pile, 
and it was kindled. Thor came up and consecrated 
it with his hammer, and before his feet ran a dwarf 
called Litr, and Thor lifted his foot and thrust the 
dwarf into the fire, where he was burned. . . . Odin 
laid upon the pile a ring. . . . Balder's horse and 
all the trappings were likewise laid upon the pile. 
. . ." ^ Relics of such naval sepulchres have been 
discovered; such is the famous Viking ship, now in 
the possession of the university of Christiania, and 
recently dug up from its resting-place of a thousand 
years. 

Famous is the so-called " Passing of Scyld " ; ^ we 
find, however, no mention of burning the corpse, and 

1 Glyfaginning, XLIX., Prose Edda, ed. Wilken, p. 75 f . 2 Beoio. 26 ff. 



324 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

a too hasty inference of Sarrazin^ makes this fact 
prove that an Anglo-Saxon editor or translator of the 
Scandinavian original (such is Sarrazin's nigh im- 
possible theory) allowed his own ideas of burial to 
predominate in the description. 

Forth he fared at the fateful moment, 

Scyld the Grim into God's protection. 

Then they bore him over to ocean's billow, 

clansmen trusty — he charg'd them thus 

while he wielded words, winsome Scylding.^ 

In the roadstead rock'd the ring-prow'd vessel, — 

the loved leader had long possess'd it, — ^ 

ready and gleaming, a royal ship : 

there laid they down their darling lord, 

in the boat's wide bosom the breaker of rings, 

by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure 

fetch'd from far was freighted with him. 

Ne'er have I known ship nobler deck'd 

with weapons of war and weeds of battle, 

with blade and breastplate. On its bosom lay 

heap'd-up hoard that hence should go 

far o'er the flood with him floating away. 

No less they gave him lordly gifts, 

ample treasure, than erstwhile those 

who in former time forth had sent him 

sole o'er the sea, a suckling child. 

High o'er his head they hoist the standard, 

a golden banner ; let billows take him, 

gave him to ocean : grave was their spirit, 

mournful their mood. For men are powerless 

to say in sooth, sons of the hall, 

heroes under heaven, who harbor'd that freight ! 

This charming myth is found in many places, the 
story of infants who come mysteriously floating to 

1 Beowulf-Studien, p. 39. 2 <' Friend of the Scyldings." 

3 With Bugge P. B. Beit. 12. 80, reading 31 in parenthesis after 32. 



THE FUNERAL 325 

the shore in a boat with gorgeous trappings, evidently 
a gift of heaven to the kingless realm. There they 
rule wisely and well, win lands, fame, vassals, and 
at last, dying, order their funeral in the same boat 
that bore them to their adopted country. Of kindred 
spirit are the Celtic myths about King Arthur, and 
those Germanic legends which have found their most 
popular type in the story of Lohengrin. ^ Romance is 
less obvious in the custom of South-Sea Islanders, 
who put their dead into old disabled boats, and so 
send them off to sea; and not only the dead, but 
those also who are mortally sick.^ In the Nialssaga^^ 
old Flosi is weary of life, takes a bad boat, and sails 
on his last voyage: "Folk said his boat was wretched, 
but Flosi said it was good enough for one who was 
old and ' fey.' He took in cargo, and put to sea ; but 
nothing has ever been heard of the ship since then." 
In the old English ballad of Edivard we have such an 
allusion : * — 

" What death dost thou desire to die, 
Son Davie, son Davie?" 

" I'll set my foot in a bottomless ship, 
Mother lady, mother lady ; 
I'll set my foot in a bottomless ship, 
And ye'll never see mair o' me." 

Ship-burial seems in most places to have been a pre- 
rogative of kings and princes and heroes of great 
fame. Saxo tells us that King Frotho^ made the law 

1 References, D. M. 693. 2 Lippert, Seelencult, pp. 6, 13. 3 c. 160. 

4 Child, Ballads 2 I. 169. See also ballad Lizie Wan, A, stanza ii. 
Vol. II. 448. 

5 Saxo, Muller, 234 ; Grhnm, Kl. Schr. II. 272; Holtzmann, Deutsche 
Myth. p. 123. 



326 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

that a chief (satrapa) shall be burned with one ship ; 
but for ordinary persons, ten shall be burned with 
each ship. Such a vessel — an mtJieling^s harge^ the 
poet of Beowulf calls it — filled with treasure and 
wrapt in flames, drifting slowly out to sea, watched 
by a great throng upon the shore, must have made a 
royal funeral indeed. This custom of ship-burial 
continued in the case of kings and heroes after it 
had become usual for the masses to be buried in 
mounds or common graves. A curious combination, 
or else survival, was the custom best known in 
Scandinavia, of burying people first in actual ships, 
then in coffins made to represent a ship, and lastly in 
an ordinary grave with stones piled about it in the 
shape of a ship.^ "Doubtless," says Grimm, "men 
were buried in a boat so that when in the under- 
world they came to bodies of water they might have 
their boat at hand." For just as burial in the earth 
brought about belief in that shadowy land, the 
" under-world," so perhaps these old boat-burials made 
men think of a spirit-world oversea. As with the 
Greek, Germanic superstition made this an island; 
and even Hel's mansion is surrounded by water. 
The classical Charon is not without his relatives in 
our own Germanic legend. To a fisherman at Speier 
on the Rhine came one night a person dressed like a 
monk and asked to be ferried over the stream ; this 
done, the fisherman returned and found five others 
waiting for him.^ The legend is incomplete ; but its 
origin and tendency are evident enough. Many old 
skeletons have been found in Germany with a coin of 

1 Grimm, work quoted, p. 274 ; D. M. 692. 

2 Grimm, Deutsche Sagen, No. 276 ; cf. also D. M.^ 69i. 



THE FUNERAL 327 

some sort still remaining in the mouth.^ Moreover, 
just as the mysterious western ocean held for Greek 
superstition those Fortunate Islands, the mystic 
Atlantis, the Gardens of the Hesperides, the abode 
of the blessed dead, — so there lay for Germanic 
belief a world of souls in the waters toward the set- 
ting sun. Procopius ^ relates a legend of the island 
"Brittia," whither the souls of the dead were fer- 
ried from the mainland ; on the shores of the latter 
dwelt fishermen and others who were free of all 
taxes and similar burdens of state, on condition that 
they held themselves ready to row the dead across. 
" Before midnight they hear a knocking at their 
doors, and then the voice of an invisible person who 
calls them to their work. Immediately they get up, 
and, following a certain undefined impulse, go to the 
shore. There they find boats ready for the journey, 
but quite empty, — not their ov/n boats, moreover, 
but foreign vessels. They go into these boats and 
take the oars, whereupon they notice that such a 
crowd of passengers is on board that the craft sinks 
to the level of the deck, but no one is to be seen. In 
an hour they reach Britain, whereas with their own 
boats they can scarcely row the same distance in a 
night and a day. Then the boats are emptied, and 
they row back : the vessels are so light that only the 
keel is on the water." Meanwhile no one whatever 
has been seen, although a voice is heard calling out 
the name of each person who arrives; women are 
not named directly, but are called by the name of 
those to whom they have belonged in life. Kemble 
queries whether this silent land may not be the place 

1 Grimm, D. MA III. 248. 2 Dq jjello Goth. IV. 20. 



328 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

about which is asked a question in the Salomon and 

Saturn : — 

Tell me of the land 
where none of the folk with foot can walk.^ 

Brittia, of course, is England, whither our earli- 
est ancestors, destitute of sails, could scarcely come 
save by accident or great stress of need. Hence 
the mystery and the myths. Mannhardt tells of the 
widespread belief that souls of children are fetched 
from " Engelland " ; the name was applied to Britain, 
but taken to mean " the place where angels live." 
Wackernagel quotes an old story which calls Britain 
" Seelenland," soul-land.^ We have another descrip- 
tion of this ghostly ferry given by Claudian, who 
wrote early in the fifth century. On the Gallic shore, 
he says, the same place where Odysseus poured his 
libation and spoke with the shades, " there may be 
heard weeping and lamentation and the low rustle of 
flying souls ; and folk who dwell there see pallid 
phantoms, and watch the shapes of dead men pass 
by. . . ." 

Est locus, extremum qua pandit Gallia littus, 
oceani prsetentus aquis, ubi fertur Ulixes 
sanguine libato populum movisse silentem. 
illic umbrarum tenui stridore volantum 
flebilis auditur questus. Simulacra coloni 
pallida, defunctasque vident migrare figuras.^ 

But these infinite projections of the old boat-burial 
concern rather the realm of myth and of religious 

1 Sal. and Sat. p. 177, note. 

2 See Mannhardt, Germ. Mijthen, p. 326 f ,, 370, 405. Proeopius seems 
to mean that the souls are taken to an island near ** Brittia," — Ireland, 
says Wackernagel. See Haupt's Ztst. VII. 191. 

3 Claudian in Rufinum, I. 123 ff. 



THE FUNERAL 329 

belief. Actual burial was for the great majority of 
our race connected with inland places, and where 
water played a part it was the water of sacred wells 
and streams. Legends tell of streams or fountains 
that spring from old heathen tombs, and there are 
magical properties in the water. Thus the Danish 
tradition of a certain mound " in which, in old times, 
men say there was a heathen burial-place. Near the 
foot of it wells out a spring, about which there is a 
prophecy of the sibyl, that it shall one day save 
(the neighboring town) from great danger." ^ Church- 
yards inherited all this Avealth of heathen shudders 
and superstition ; and the folk-lore of every nation is 
tilled with these tales. Our Saxon temperament 
seems especially inclined to a certain solemn enjoy- 
ment of funereal matters. How much has not the 
subject contributed to make Gray's Elegy in a 
Country Churchyard the most widely read English 
poem ! The Poema Morale^ a middle-English didac- 
tic piece in the septenarius or ballad metre, was 
enormously popular : it is full of the sepulchre. Even 
our most imaginative poetry takes a strange energy 
from the contemplation of death ; let Beaumont's 
fine verses " On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey " 
bear witness : — 

Here be sands, ignoble things, 
Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings. 

Add the emphatic testimony of Jacob Grimm : 2 
" No race, to my knowledge, was ever more strongly 
impressed by the horror of the dark and narrow grave 

1 Thiele, Darunarks Folkesagn, II. 35. 

2 Verhrennen d. Leichen, Kl. Schr. II. 308. 



330 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

than were the old Saxons and Frisians when they 
turned from burning to burying." Miillenhoff ^ says 
that "the Frisian legends, especially those of the 
islands, show a certain melancholy " ; and all of their 
witch stories and superstitions were more terrible 
and demonic than those of the mainland. Long- 
fellow rendered into English some Anglo-Saxon 
verses which he called The Grave ; and made special 
mention'^ of the "Debate between the Soul and the 
Body," of which he translated a few lines.^ Persons 
familiar with our old poetry — such as that fine frag- 
ment called TJie Ruin^ or The Wanderer^ — will 
recall a dozen elegiac passages all more or less 
based on the contemplation of death and decay. The 
somewhat obscure passage in Beowulf^ which seems 
to describe a sort of self-burial, is in point.* An old 
man, the last of his race, fashions or finds a burial- 
place in a cave among the rocks, and carries into it 
all the treasure which once delighted his kinsmen. 
Then he chants his farewell to the splendors of 
life : — 

Now hold thou, earth, since heroes may not, 

warriors' riches ! once from thee 

earls have delved them : now death hath seized, 

bale and terror, my trusty people, 

laid down life have my liegemen all. 

None have I left to lift my sword, 

or to cleanse the cup of carven gold, 

costly beaker : clansmen are vanished. 

1 Introduction to Sagen . . . von Schlesivig-Holstetn, etc. p. liii. 

2 In his Poets and Poetry of Europe. 

3 Wiilker, Grundriss d. ags. Lit. p. 74. 

4 See Bugge in P. B. Beit. 12. 370. Beow. 2233 ff. 



THE FUNERAL 331 

Helmet glittering, golden-fretted, 

must part with its trappings : polishers sleep 

who were wont to brighten the battle-mask. 

And the battle-raiment which bode in war 

over bicker of shields the bite of weapons, 

since the clan's death, crumbles : nor corselet's ring 

shall fare afar with the famed hero, 

at the side of the warrior : winsome harp, 

glee-wood is dumb, nor darts good hawk 

swift through the hall, nor the speedy horse 

stamps in the burg-steads : bitter death 

the flower of the race hath reft away. 

So the last of his clan. This elegiac mood has been 
attributed by a German critic,^ not to the tendency 
of the race itself, but rather to the softening influ- 
ences of Christianity. This seems to be a surface- 
criticism ; melancholy of some sort is inherent in the 
Germanic temperament, and a sheer ferocity of the 
Viking or even Berserker type is not enough to offset 
the countless examples of the elegiac and pathetic 
in our oldest literature. Thus the "dying with a 
laugh" of Scandinavian heroes is not necessarily 
opposed to a melancholy habit of mind. There are 
laughs and laughs. 

The funeral-ceremony was accompanied by games, 
feasting, and sacrifices ; and these might well be con- 
tinued for some time. The act of taking formal posses- 
sion of one's patrimony was probably connected with 
these rites; and Sir Henry Maine ^ speaks of that 
" close relation between succession to property after 
death and the performance of some sort of sacrificial 
rites in honor of the deceased." At the Scandina- 

1 Heinzel, uher den Stil. d. altgerm. Poesie, Strasburg, 1875. 

- Early Law and Ctistom, p. 78. Cf. also his Ancient Laio, p. 191. 



332 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

vian funeral-feast, the lieir sat on a bench near the 
high-seat 1 until the Bragi-beaker was brought to him. 
Then he rose, drank, made certain vows, and there- 
upon took his father's seat, by this act entering on his 
inheritance and becoming head of his family. Games 
at the funeral are of very ancient record ; their funda- 
mental purpose was a common amusement for the 
spirit of the dead man and his living kinsmen, since 
he was thought to eat, drink, and make merry with 
the survivors. Feats of horsemanship are favorite 
forms of this merry-making. A sailor, Wulfstan, 
told King Alfred of some odd customs which the 
Esthonians of his time observed at funerals. They 
feast a long time in the dead man's home, burn his 
body finally, and then carry all his property from the 
house and arrange it in several heaps along a consider- 
able distance, the largest heap being farthest from 
the house. Then all the men ride as swiftly as pos- 
sible towards the different heaps ; the fastest rider 
naturally gets the largest amount. This must have 
added terrors to death for all the kinsfolk, and cer- 
tainly rendered superfluous any ceremonies of enter- 
ing on the inheritance.^ We hear of games at the 
grave of Attila, and Jordanes describes them briefly.^ 
In the midst of the plain and under silken tents they 
placed Attila's body, and celebrated certain remark- 
able games (spectaculum) . The best horsemen chosen 
from the entire race of the Huns rode, after the 
fashion of the circus, about the place where he lay in 

1 C/. above, p. lOo. 

2 Voyages of Ohtliere and Wulfstan, inserted in Alfred's Orosius. 

3 "Pauca de multis dicere." See Jord. de orig. act. Getarum, ed. 
Holder, c. 49. 



THE FUNERAL 333 

state, and glorified his deeds in a funeral-song, some- 
what like the following: "Attila, mighty king of 
Huns, son of Mundzuccas, lord of the bravest races, 
who hath ruled alone with power unheard before 
the realms of Scythia and Germany, and with taking 
of states and cities hath terrified both the empires ! 
Then lest everything should fall a prey to the enemy, 
was he moved by prayer to accept a yearly tribute. 
When finally he had happily done all these things, it 
was not the wound of a foe, not the treachery of a 
kinsman, but joyful in the joy of his people, and with- 
out a pang, that he fell in death. Who, then, could 
call that a decease,^ which no one thinks of aveng- 
ing?" 

Compare with this the account of Beowulf's 
funeral : — ^ 

Then the bairn of Wihstan bade command, 
the man of battles, many a warrior, 
many a hero, hither to bring 
from far the pyre-wood, people-shielders. 
Now fire of the pile shall fret and swallow 

— as wan flame waxes — the warrior's king, 
who often breasted the iron-shower, 

when storm of darts from the string impelled, 
shot o'er the shield-wall ; — shaft was firm, 
feather-fretted flew with the barb. 

****** 
Then the wounden gold on wain was laden 

— 'twere ill to count it ! — and th' setheling borne, 
hoary hero to Hrones-Ness.^ 

Folk of the Jutes then fashion'd there 

on the earth a pyre imperishable 

hung with harness and helms of battle, 

with breastplates bright, as he begged them once. 

1 Exitum. 2 3110 ff . 3 jjron - whale. 



334 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

In the midst they laid their mighty chieftain, 
warriors wailing their winsome lord. 
Then on the mountain a mighty pyre 
the warriors wakened : ^ the wood-smoke rose 
swart o'er the red glow, roaring flame, 
mingled with moaning (the wind was whist 2) 
till the heat had broken the house of bones, 
melt in its bosom. Mourning-hearted 
they moaned the sorrow, a master's death. 
Likewise the widow, a woful song. . . .^ 

Then the Weder people wrought anon 

on the cliff a barrow broad and high, 

by ocean farers easily seen, 

and within the tide of ten days built 

the bold-one's beacon, by burnt-out pyre,^ 

and wrought them a wall, as worthiest seemed 

to wisest men who weighed the matter. 

Then they put in the barrow bracelets and rings, 

all the treasure taken before 

out of the hoard by the hero-band. 

They left earl's riches for earth to hold, 

the gold in ground, where again it lies 

useless to men as ever it was. 

Then round the barrow brave men rode, 

sons of sethelings, twelve in all, 

would moan their misery, mourn the king, 

say their sorrow, and speak in laud, 

praise his prowess, his powerful doing, 

worthily laud him, as well beseemeth 

men to praise their master-friend, 

heartily love, when hence he goeth 

from life of the body forlorn away. 

1 A favorite trope in A.-S. ; here= " kindle," " fan into flame." 

2 Another reading : — 

roaring played, 
mingled with weeping of winds, the flame. 

2 The text is very difficult here, on account of defects in the Ms. 
^ Bugge. Others read " bronda hetost." 



THE FUNERAL 335 

So mourn'd their master the men of Jutland, 
fall of the hero his hearth-companions, 
counted him of the kings of earth, 
of men the mildest and most beloved, 
to his kin the kindest, keenest for praise ! 

No one can fail to see the likeness between this 
burial of Beowulf and the ceremonies at the funeral 
of Attila. 

The whole logic of the primitive funeral was based 
on a supposition that the spirit sundered from the 
body lived after death. The grave is a house, — 
eortsMs. " Immortality," if we may use such an ex- 
pression, was assumed without question and lies 
fossil-like in ancient speech. Phrases like "faring 
to another light," found plentifully in Anglo-Saxon 
and Old Norse, are of heathen origin, and must not 
be referred to theology of later times.^ Gudrun 
says she is fain to go to another light ;^ and in 
BSowulf^ one "gave up the joyous life of men, he 
chose God's light." The phrase is here lightly 
touched with the new theology, but is of far older 
origin. Even the HSliand clings to ancient expres- 
sion and the simpler form: sdJcian lioht d^ar^ to 
seek the other light. Other kennings for death are 
significant, as " to go " — from world, body, house, 
hall, " to go " forth or hence, " to seek the joyless 
place," " to part soul and body." Of a certain prince 
we are told, " his father had gone elsewhere." Death 
is called " the journey," " the miserable journey," or 
"the parting of the soul." Sometimes the body is 

1 For lists, see Bode, Kenningar ; and Vilmar, Altert. im Heliand, 
p. 20, note 2. 

2 Fara i lids annat. Atlamdl, 84. 8. 



336 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

regarded as a garment which man doffs at death.^ The 
summons to depart comes "at the hour of fate"; then 
it was that old Scyld fared forth. The Viking heroes 
of Scandinavia expected the fixed moment of Odin's 
choosing ; and the word '' fey," still known in Scot- 
land, was once the commonest of Germanic words. 
" There die," says a character in the Nibelungen 
Lay, " only the doomed ones," — ez sterhent ivan die 
veigen. "Danger (a pit, abyss) is everywhere for 
the doomed one," is a Norse parallel.^ This com- 
bination of the sense of fatalism with implicit belief 
in a future life leads, we all know, to the highest 
conditions of bravery and contempt for death ; and, 
indeed, it takes us quite away from the realm of 
daily Germanic custom. Across the border-land of 
the funeral, we come into the wide domain of religion. 

1 Here we may compare the swan-raiment of wise women and the 
belief in werewolves. See Mannhardt, Germ. Mythen, p. 692. 

2 Allt er feigs forced f Fafnismdl, 11. 6. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 337 



CHAPTER Xir 

THE AVORSHIP OF THE DEAD 

Germanic religion in general — Cult and creed — Heathen 
scepticism — Agreement of old and new faiths — Cult of ancestors, 
and superstitions about the dead — Survivals — All Souls — Swiss 
customs — Heathen rites made Christian — The patron- saint and 
the fylgja. 

Religion in general has two sides, the cult and the 
creed. Primarily, the cult is a series of ceremonial 
acts, rather than a system of what we should call 
worship; and the creed is not so much a logical 
statement of belief as a record or tradition, which, 
nowhere definitely set down, finds expression in a 
number of more or less coherent tales about super- 
natural persons and supernatural experiences. Or, 
we may put the dualism in a different fashion. Re- 
ligion rests upon ethics and emotion. In its primi- 
tive stages the ethical phase is entirely occupied by 
a sense of duty to demonic powers, — a slavish sense 
of duty as to a master who must be obeyed in fear 
and trembling ; and the emotion is wholly a sense of 
wonder at inexplicable facts and processes, mainly 
of the physical universe, which spur the fancy to ex- 
press the superhuman in terms of the human, and in 
the shape which we call a myth. That is, myths are 



338 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

a series of compromises between the tendency to pro- 
ject personality into all operations of nature, and the 
tendency to seek such a cause for these operations as 
shall be wholly free from observed human impotence. 
The history of cult and ceremonial religion traces the 
development of an ethical sense, from physical offer- 
ing and sacrifice through symbolical rites up to the 
notion of duty to one's fellows as the outcome of 
duty to one's God. The history of religious emotion, 
on the other hand, is for all early stages a part of the 
history of poetry,^ and must chronicle the attempts 
of the human mind to set in order and realize its 
sense of wonder at the supernatural. The realization 
of this sense of wonder is expressed in the myth, 
and a series of myths may foster a primitive creed.'^ 
From both of these great religious factors, the cere- 
mony and the myth, constantly there slips and es- 
capes the living faith which gives them being. But, 
notwithstanding this loss of vitality, myth and rite 
remain firm, and form a part of traditional religion. 
Long after the living sense for a myth, or the tangi- 
ble belief in a divinity, has lapsed from people's mind, 
the cult and creed survive, and men go through form 
after form, careless of the reason, but tenacious of 
the ancient rite. It is evident, however, that the 
work of destruction or indifference is far more swift 
with creed than with ceremony. Creed is a garment 
which one may hold more or less dear, but not re- 
fuse to discard; cult is the habitual round of one's 

1 Qiiellen u. Forschungen, No. 51, Mullenhoff's preface to Mann- 
hardt's Mytliol. Forsch. p. viii. f. 

2 Rationalistic elements enter very early into the making of myths, 
as where a story is told to explain what has hitherto passed as inex- 
plicable. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 339 

life which one easily identifies with life itself. It 
follows, therefore, that in an early stage of the de- 
cline of a great religious system we should find the 
creed uncertain and easily uprooted, the cult still 
vigorous and tenacious of its place. 

Precisely in such a condition we find the hea- 
thenism of the Germanic race at the time of its 
early contact with Rome and Christianity ; and pre- 
cisely for these causes we can understand the ease 
with which Christian doctrines, allied with the new 
culture and the new lore which so dazzled our fore- 
fathers, battered down what ought to have been stub- 
born barriers of inherited Germanic belief. With 
admirable discretion, the early missionaries made 
their main assault on the belief, and left the custom 
and ceremony to be undermined by slow siege, or 
driven away by strategy.^ Pope Gregory laid down 
this admirable system in his advice to certain preach- 
ers of the new faith in heathen England ; and urged 
in all possible cases a toleration of old rites or else a 
gentle wresting of them into Christian uses.^ If the 
heathen have been sacrificing oxen to their idols and 
holding feasts, let the oxen still be slaughtered, the 

1 This policy was not always adopted. The missionaries who, in the 
eighth century, sought to convert the Frisians and Saxons, were ex- 
tremely violent in their methods, and hegan their work by abrupt 
attack upon the dearest heathen sanctities. See von Richthofen, Frie- 
sische Eechtsgesch. II. 411 ff. He contrasts all this with the mild 
conversion of Iceland. 

2 Beda, Hist. Ecc. I. 30 (ed. Holder) . This chapter is of great im- 
portance for the subject. See specially the passage : ". . . fana idolorum 
destrui . . . minime debeant; sed ipsa, quae in eis sunt, idola destruantur; 
aqua benedicta fiat, in eisdem fanis aspergatur, altaria construentur, 
reliquiae ponantur." As a result, the new church bore in many cases 
close resemblance to the heathen temple. For Scandinavia, see Henry 
Petersen, Om Nordboernes Gudedyrkelse og Gudetro i Hedenokl, p. 22. 



340 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

feasts still be held, nee diaholo . . . sed ad laudem dei. 
" Concentrate your attack," said, in effect, the wise 
pope, "upon the false gods^ and the false belief: 
deal tenderly with immemorial customs. Destroy 
the idols, but spare the altars and the temple." 
Precisely in this strain, Remigius laid his famous 
command upon the just converted king of the 
Franks ; " Adore what thou hast burnt ! Burn what 
thou hast adored ! " 

The attack upon heathen divinities was made yet 
easier by a certain spirit of doubt which had begun 
to affect the Germanic mind itself. Thoughtful souls 
were reaching after something better than the worn- 
out tales of a rude mythology, and daring souls had 
flung all faith aside. Our best view of a race on this 
border between an old and a new religion is in Scan- 
dinavia. Many a hard-headed Norseman mocked at 
the old-wives' tales of the Edda, and snapped his 
huge Viking fingers at an Odin or a Thor. At 
Throndhjem in the days of Hakon Jarl, Svend, a 
worshipper of Thor, pleaded with his son Finn, who 
had insulted the ancestral god. Thor, urged Svend, 
had crushed the rocks and fared through the moun- 
tains ; Odin gave victory. " It is no great matter," 
answered Finn, " to break up stones or to conquer by 
witchcraft. He is the mighty god who has first of 
all created hill and sky and sea."^ The Icelander 

1 The debate between Frankish Clovis and his Christian wife hinges 
on the true or false nature of the heathen gods (where the tirade 
against Jupiter and the others is, of course, mere monkish invention). 
And very significant is the king's remark about the Christian deity : 
" He is not even of our race of gods! " See Greg. Tur. II. 29, and Rett- 
berg, Kirchenc/eschichte Deutschlands, I. 273. 

2 P. E. Muller, Sagahihliothek; III. 322. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 341 

Thorkell, as his end drew near, commended his soul 
" to him that created the sun." ^ Men turned in 
disgust from the rout of weak or knavish gods. In 
the saga of Hrolf Kraki, we are told that King Hrolf 
and his men honored no gods, but trusted in their 
own might.2 "Not Odin," cries another, "but chance 
rules over the life of man." "I am an old man," 
urged Ketil; "see how long I have lived, and yet 
I have never honored Odin." Down at Byzantium, 
a sturdy heathen Icelander was asked by the Greek 
emperor in whom, then, he believed. " In myself," 
was the reply. Hrafnkel says, " I hold it folly to be- 
lieve in gods." Among Anglo-Saxons, the very min- 
isters of the old faith stood ready to welcome the 
new. We all know Beda's two stories, one of Coifi, 
the high-priest, who rode spear in hand to shatter the 
temple of his own gods ; the other, of that old North- 
umbrian counsellor who told his king that since life 
was but as a bird's flight through their own warm and 
lighted hall, in from the darkness and out into the 
darkness, — since their own faith had nothing to say 
of that outer dark, let them welcome the new faith 
which could. Energy of fresh and high belief over- 
whelmed half-hearted followers of custom. When 
Christian and heathen were contending in Iceland 
what religion the whole nation should adopt, the 
heathens proposed to sacrifice eight men to the gods. 
The Christians answered by calling on the same num- 
ber of men to take the vows of a pure life, — a pro- 
posal accepted at once by the adherents of the new 

1 W. Mliller, Geschichte u. System d. altdeutschen Religion (hence- 
forth *S?/s^ejn), p. 100. 

2 See Dahn, Baiisteine, 1. 133-135, where many examples are given. 



342 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

faith, while on the heathen side no volunteers what- 
ever could be found.i 

Christian dogma had an easy victory. It was a 
compact and logical system elaborated by the subtlest 
intellects of the time, and it swept the loose array 
of myths and traditions from the field. But the old 
rites, the old ceremonies, and even the shadowy forms 
of old gods and goddesses, so far as they had been 
connected with cult, lived on. The rout of spirits 
and demons, with a slight change by way of adapta- 
tion to the new creed, were undisturbed, and held 
their old places in fireside tradition and fireside cult. 
On certain homely occasions even the great divinities 
of heathendom could be invoked. Says J. Grimm : ^ 
"People who held in strictness all the Christian 
creed and were ready to persecute and damn the 
doubter about trinitarian dogmas or the sinner who 
broke a fast, had no scruples in time of bodily dis- 
ease, even if only a finger was hurt, to recite incan- 
tations in which the old gods were called upon for 
help." Even in the seventeenth century, a Scandi- 
navian toothache was best banned by a direct appeal, 
and even a sort of sacrifice, to Thor. Moreover, 
there were many instances where men endeavored to 
serve at once the old gods and the new faith ; such 
was the case with ^thelbert of Kent, who allowed 
images of heathen deities to stand by the Christian 
altars.^ In Frankish Germany, during the eighth 
century, we hear of priests who sacrifice to Wuotan 
(Woden), attend the heathen feasts, and yet profess 

1 Vigfusson-Powell, C. P. B. I. 140, and references. 

2 Ueher MarceUus Biirdigalensis, Kl. Schr. II. 115. 

3 Grimm, D. M.^ III. 7. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 343 

themselves Christians and administer the rite of bap- 
tism.i Again, the new religion had yet another ally 
in addition to the waning belief of heathendom. 
There were articles of faith in the old creed which 
substantially agreed with important tenets of the 
new.2 The church assured and defined that vague 
but insistent belief in personal immortality which is 
common to half-civilized men the world over ; it em- 
phasized the sense of horror, felt as strongly by the 
barbarian as by Milton,^ at the thought of a human 
soul going out like a candle-flame in the dark. The 
soldiers of Ariovistus fought with such desperate 
courage, explained the Roman historian, because they 
knew death to be a mere transition to another life. 
This, of course, is no Germanic peculiarity. The 
Celtic druids held so strongly to the notion of immor- 
tality that they actually contracted debts which were 
to be paid in the next world.* Often at a Celtic ban- 
quet, when the mirth grew dull, some accommodating 
young warrior would kill himself in novel or artistic 
fashion to divert the guests ; it was only a step into 
another group, where with old comrades he could 
wait — in those days, not very long — for the rest of 

1 See Rettberg, I. 326. 

2 Rettberg, I. 247 f., remarks that ethical tendencies of our heathen- 
dom, the high value set on chastity and certain forms of justice, would 
welcome analogous tendencies, more sharply outlined, of the new re- 
ligion. 

3 Paradise Lost, II. 146 : 

To be no more : sad cure; for who would lose, 
Though full of pain, this intellectual being, 
Those thoughts that wander through eternity, 
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost 
In the wide womb of uncreated night. 
Devoid of sense and motion ? 

4 Caesar B. G. VI. 14, and Holtzmaun, Deutsche Mythol. p. 196. 



344 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the company. These same Celts sold themselves to 
be killed, for a sum of money, or even for a few 
casks of wine.^ This is crude fatalism ; and we must 
admit that the church vigorously opposed such a 
phase of the belief in immortality: our own English 
^Ifric, for example, is eloquent against it. But the 
more general notion of immortality was fixed in the 
heathen mind; the new religion individualized, en- 
nobled, and confirmed the faith. To put it briefly, 
Christianity forbade that a man's future should be 
merged, after the heathen fashion, in the future of 
his family or clan ; it treated him as an individual 
and mediated directly between him and God. This 
personal religion began by slow degrees to take its 
place in the midst of collective and ceremonial relig- 
ion ; and thus arose that great modern fact which 
we call sentiment. Contrast the ceremonial worship 
of a heathen clan with the personal sentiment of a 
mediaeval hymn! Contrast the chorus, the feast, 
the wide pagan publicity of worship (and the church 
took care to preserve a plenty of this element) with 
the direct and piercing individualism of the monk 
who in his solitary fervor poured out such words as 

these : — 

O Deus, ego amo te ! . . . 
Tu, tu, mi Jesu, totniin me 
AmplexTis es in cruce, 
Tulisti ... 
Innumeros dolores, 
Sudores et angores, 
Et mortem et hsec propter me, 
Ah ! pro me peccatore ! 

State and family religion, with the head of state 

1 See Mommseu, Rome, Dickson's transl. p. 277. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 345 

or family as priest, yielded ground to the personal 
expression of awe, of reverence, of love; the mere 
sense of conduct, modern writers would say, be- 
came the sense of conduct touched by emotion. 
From our notion of primitive religion, and especially 
of Germanic heathendom, we must take pains to 
clear away this element of emotion which we are 
so apt to regard as the chief part of religion itself. 
Where to seek the beginnings of sentiment as a 
factor in domestic, social, or religious life, is a diffi- 
cult problem ; but recent writers agree that it is 
foreign to primitive races, and even that it is a result, 
not a cause of culture. Certainly the church did 
much to spread it over rough mediaeval life ; every- 
where we find her ritual touching ancient custom 
with this new grace of emotion. The old perfunc- 
tory service to the dead, the journey to a burial-place, 
and the food or treasure heaped upon an ancestor's 
grave, became a memorial service and a wreath of 
flowers; the act, once all in all, became a symbol, 
for modern worship places or professes to place 
more weight on the spirit than on the act. "The 
kingdom of God is within you." It is therefore 
necessary to put aside our modern notion of wor- 
ship when we come to examine the religion of 
the early Germans. We have seen that a certain 
scepticism about the tales of their mythology, a cer- 
tain familiarity with prominent parts of the new 
doctrine, made them comparatively docile converts 
to a new faith ; but what we most need to consider 
is the nature of their actual cult, the observance of 
their practical religion, as compared with the pomp 
and ritual of Rome. How much of this pomp was 



346 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

forced upon the church in place of the earlier sim- 
plicity of apostolic times, is an open question. Not 
only the ceremonies incident to a state religion 
brought about the change ; the barbaric races, soon 
to be the great props of the church, were incapable 
of any worship which scorned external helps and 
which needed only the fervor of the heart. Hence 
the accommodation to heathen custom, the feasts, the 
saints'-days ; hence all the external attractions, and 
the subsequent enlisting of every art from music to 
the drama. 

It is evident from the foregoing considerations 
that the one religious element which entered into the 
life of our forefathers was the round of ceremonies 
and observances, the cult. Myths belong elsewhere, 
and are a part of Germanic literature, of Germanic 
poetry. In these pages we are concerned with the 
cult, and shall appeal to mythology only so far as it 
throws light upon the history of Germanic ceremony 
and superstition. 

A form of worship found in all low grades of cul- 
ture, and existing everywhere in more or less obvious 
survival, is the worship of the dead.^ A favorite with 
writers on anthropology, this territory has been here- 
tofore greatly neglected by the mythologists. At 
present, however, it is getting more and more atten- 
tion, and must be recognized as one of the most 
important divisions in the study of religious develop- 

1 For the sources of our information about Germanic worship, see 
Grimm, D. M.,'^ Vorrede, Bel. II., especially pp. x. if. ; and E. Mogk in 
Paul's Grdr. d. germ. Phil. I. 98i ff. See the same work, 998 If., for 
the special svibject of this chapter, and references. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 347 

ment.^ We may in the main accept for Germanic 
people generally the statement of Vigfusson and 
Powell, with regard to Scandinavian antiquity, that 
" the habitual and household worship of ancestors " 
was " the main cult of the older religion." ^ 

This worship of the dead we shall assume as a defi- 
nite fact in primitive culture, and shall make little 
inquiry in regard to its origin.^ The dead were 
thought to lead as spirits an existence which closely 
resembled actual life ; as head of a family, the dead 
man exacted tribute from his surviving children and 
grandchildren ; they continued to obey his supposed 
demands, and perhaps ascribed petty but mysterious 
ailments to his anger at neglected duty. At least, 
we have the well-known modern instance of an African 
chief who suddenly took leave of his white guest, say- 
ing that since his head ached violently, he knew that 
his dead father was scolding him, and he must hasten 
to offer something to the angry spirit. A regular cult 

1 E. H. Meyer formally incorporates it in his system of mythology 
{Indogermanische Mythen, I. 1883; 11.1887). Holtzmann recognized 
it, cautiously enough, saying tbat a material part of the old heathen 
religion was worship and service of ancestors. Perhaps, he adds, "it 
was harder for the church to suppress this sort of worship than the 
worship of the gods " (Deutsche Myth. p. 202). He had leaned to the 
same opinion in his Germanische Alterthiimer . Vigfusson and Powell 
assert the fondness of Scandinavians for this manes-cult, and cite the 
testimony of Jordanes for its popularity among the Goths; ancestors 
of the royal Gothic house were Anses, — "not men, but demigods," — 
who were worshipped by their descendants. J. Grimm himself collects 
abundant material in regard to the survivals and traditions of such 
worship. See especially Chap. XXXI. of the Mythology. 

2 C. P. B. I. 413. 

3 Ample material in Spencor, Sociology ; Tylor, Primitive Culture 
aud Early History of Mankind; Lippert, Culturgeschichte, etc. For 
an opposing theory, see the introduction (by J. S. Stuart-Glennie, M.A.) 
to Lucy M, Garnett's The Women of Turkey and Their Folk-Lore : 
The Christian Women, London aud New York, 1890. 



348 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

of the dead is one of the stubbornest facts of human 
history, and in the refined form of " Spiritualism " 
counts thousands and thousands of votaries to-day. 
In its grosser manifestations, it was contrary to the 
teachings of Christianity, and hence our best informa- 
tion in regard to a Germanic spirit-cult is to be found 
in the various edicts and regulations of the early 
church. The canons of Eadgar ^ forbid swearing or 
bewitching by means of the dead ; licwigelung is evi- 
dently the same as necromancy ; and proof that this 
ban was needed may be found in an old interpretation 
of dreams, — taken, of course, from the Latin, but 
current and approved in Anglo-Saxon popular lore, — 
which tells us that it is a token of good fortune to 
talk with the dead.^ " If [one] dreams that he kisses 
a dead man, that is good and long life." ^ That the 
neighborhood of sepulchres hallowed a place and made 
it likely to prosper, was a widespread belief. An 
Anglo-Saxon charm or incantation, one of several for 
the use of women in pregnancy, opens mth the follow- 
ing directions : " The woman who cannot bring forth 
her child should go to a dead man's grave (birgenne')^ 
and step thrice over the grave and speak then these 
words. ..." And further on in the same charm 
(v. 15), we have the efficacy of the '' barrow " or sepul- 
chre more directly attested.* So, too, there seems to 
have been at Anglo-Saxon funerals more or less 
heathen ceremony which pointed directly to the wor- 

1 Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes, p. 397. 

2 "Mid deadum spellian [sprecan] gestrion hit get&cna'S." Cock- 
ayne, Leechdoms, III. 202 ; twice on the page. 

8 Ibid. III. 174, 208. 

4 Wulker-Grein, Bibl. d. Ags. Poesie, I. 326 f . 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 349 

ship of the dead. ^Ifric tells ^ the priests of his time 
not to go to funerals unless invited, a praiseworthy 
but commonplace piece of advice ; then, however, 
adds that if they do go, they are to forbid "the 
heathen songs of the laity (iGeioedrd) and their loud 
laughter," and not to eat nor drink where the corpse 
is lying ; this he commands in order that good church- 
men shall not imitate heathen ways. Further,^ the 
Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum, referring to 
the continental Saxons and dating from the year 743, 
speaks first of all de sacrilegio ad sepidchra mortuorum 
and de sacrilegio super defunctos, id est, "dadsisas," — 
of sacrilege at the graves of the dead, and of sacrilege 
over dead persons ; that is, dadsisas. This last word 
is explained by Grimm ^ as a " song of lament for the 
dead " ; and that it was not a mere funeral-song as 
we understand the phrase, but rather belonged with 
offerings aud sacrificial rites to thC' dead, is made 
probable by the urgent opposition of the church. In 
the Anglo-Saxon Confessional of Ecgberht it is pro- 
vided that "whosoever in the place where a man lies 
dead shall burn corn for the good of living persons 
and in his house,* shall fast five winters." The corn 
was burnt for the benefit of the dead man, who would 
for this reason look with favor upon the survivors. 
Again and again the church forbids these offerings 
and songs and other ceremonies in connection with 

1 Thorpe, Ancient Laios and Institutes, p. 448. Most of the older 
literature on this subject was collected by Bouterwek in the introduc- 
tion to his Csedmon. 

2 See D. MA III. 403 ff. ; also p. 406 f., extract from Burchard of 
Worms, 10. 10; 10. 34; etc. 3 Grimm, D. MA I. 1027. 

4 As Bouterwek {Csedmon, p. Ixxxvii.) notes, the Latin text reads 
" pro sanitate viventium et domus." 



350 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the dead ; ^ and there can be no doubt that it was 
a matter of worship rather than of ordinary grief. 
The Anglo-Saxon barrow-song or lyke-song^ was 
no mere threnody. People prayed by night, stand- 
ing at the ancient places of burial ; originally the 
prayers were to the dead, but, no doubt, in course 
of time were directed to gods or demigods of 
tradition, for whom the grave-stone served as an 
altar. 

Popular faith had little to do with abstractions; 
and when the dead were addressed in prayer, they 
were thought to be personally involved in a palpable 
and questionable shape. Hence the many spells or 
incantations to raise the dead and bid them open 
mysteries of the present or the future. Hence the 
Old Norse valgaldr^ a charm or incantation meant to 
awaken the sleeper from his heavy death-slumber ; in 
particular, it is a spell by which Odin forces the 
sibyl to rise from her grave and foretell the fate of 
Balder.^ " On Woden rode . , . till he came to the 
lofty hall of Hell, then Woden rode to its eastern 
gate where he knew the sibyl's barrow stood. He 
fell to chanting the mighty spells that move the dead 
(yalgald}")^ till she rose all unwilling and her corpse 
spake." Schullerus^ cites a similar case in Saxo 
Grammaticus, where Hadingus wishes to ascertain 
particulars of his own fate, and' compels a dead man 
to give the required information; bits of wood are 

1 Christian priests took part in them, to the g^reat scandal of the 
church. Rettberg, I. 326. 

2 Byrgensang ; Ucsang. See also D. M^ I. 1027 f . 

3 VegtamskvWa, called by Vigfusson and Powell Balder^ s Doom, 
C. P. B. 1. 182. The translation, used here, always gives the English 
form of the names, as Woden for Odin. 4 p..b. Beit. XII. 236, note. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 351 

laid under his tongue, a device Avhicli reminds us 
somewhat of the miracle told in Chaucer's Prioresses 
Tale^ and the corpse thereupon begins to speak. Of 
course, dira carmina^ runes and incantations, are writ- 
ten on these fragments. In another Old Norse poem,^ 
the disguised Odin says that he learned his sharp 
words from the old people who live "m the home- 
graves'^'^ Everywhere in the old Scandinavian life 
we find traces of this direct worship of the dead; 
sacrifices were made to them in order to insure good 
crops, and the ceremony was conducted by the head of 
the family among the ancestral graves.^ Authr was 
a rich woman who had embraced the new faith ; but 
when she was dead and buried in a certain mountain, 
her descendants, who kept their heathendom, made 
an altar there and brought sacrifice, and believed that 
all of Authr's kin would gather after death within this 
mountain.* It is easy, as many scholars have pointed 
out, to see the connection between this worship of 
ancestral dead near the cave or hill in which they are 
buried, and the countless myths and legends which 
tell of a prince or chieftain who " sleeps " in a moun- 
tain, and will one day ride forth to conquest.^ The 
sacrificial feast at an ancestral grave lingered long in 
survival. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales^ 
we are told that certain craftsmen had so prospered 
in the world that they were fit to be aldermen ; and 

1 Harbar^slj . 44. 

2 Reading hauyum with Hildebrand and the English editors, instead 
of skogum= forests, as others have it. 

3 C. P. B. I. 413 ff. 4 Landndma Isl. S. I. 

5 Mogk's protest (Paul's Grclr. p. 1005) against the custom of re- 
garding all these legends as so many Woden myths, is surely well 
founded. 6 y. 375 ft. 



352 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

to this dignity their wives would surely make no 
objection, for — 

It is f ul fair to ben yclept Madame, 

And gon to vigilies al byfore, 

And have a mantel riallyche ibore. . . . 

Precedence, a matter of old tradition evidently, 
obtained at the vigilies,. ths^t is, the meetings of the 
parishioners " in their church-houses or church-yards, 
where they were wont to have a drinking-fit for the 
time," and where " they used to end many quarrels 
between neighbor and neighbor." In 1638, "one of 
the Suffolk articles of inquiry was : ' Have any 
Places, Feasts, Banquets, Supper's, Church Ales, 
Drinkings, Temporal Courts or Leets, Lay Juries, 
Musters, Exercise of Dancing, Stoole ball, Foot hall, or 
the like, or any other profane usage been suffered to 
be kept in your Church, Chappell or Church Yard ? ' " i 
It is easy to see the connection with ancient rites. 
Dancing in graveyards gave frequent scandal in 
England ; and we shall presently see the same sur- 
vival in the rites of burial. 

Recurring to the actual Avorship of the dead, we 
find testimony in Beda,^ who, speaking of the several 
months, says that February, called solmonath, is the 
" month of cakes,'' which at this time were offered by 
the heathen to their gods ; ^ whereupon Holtzmann 
remarks that for " gods " we should probably read 
" spirits " — manihus^ These offerings were made 

1 Brand, " Churchyards." 2 x)q temp. rat. c. 15. 

3 " Solmonath dici potest mensis placentarum quas in eo dis suis 
offerebant." See also Grimm, G. D. S. p. 77, who approves Beda's ety- 
mology. 

4 J). M. (Holtzmann) p. 202. " Die Gutter sind die Vorfahren." 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 353 

at the graves, which then as now were marked by 
stones; church edicts keep forbidding laymen to 
make sacrifice "at stones." Kristnisaga tells of a 
bishop who sang Christian spells over a stone where 
the " family spirit " was thought to dwell ; at last 
the piety of the prelate had its reward, and the stone 
burst asunder. 1 

The dead were supposed to abide either in the 
immediate tomb or else in that vast realm which is 
only the infinite projection of the tomb, the so-called 
underworld or domain of hell. So that the inmate, 
when conjured to appear, may make immediate ap- 
pearance, or else come as from a long journey. When 
Odin's strong charm conjures up the sibyl, she com- 
plains : " What mortal is it . . . that hath put me 
to this weary journey ? I have been snowed on with 
the snow, I have been beaten with the rain, I have 
been drenched with the dew, long have I been dead."^ 
Similarly, Helgi's appearance is described by Sigrun, 
when she meets him at the barrow. We are justified 
in assuming with Schullerus that the grave is in the 
closest connection with Hel's cold and dreary domin- 
ions.^ Mostly, however, the dead are conceived to be 
close at hand, resting in the narrow cell or invisibly 
haunting the scenes of their active life.* Significant 
perhaps in this regard is the saying of Tacitus about 
Germanic sepulchres,^ that no monuments are raised 
above them because such would be too heavy for the 
departed ; ^ it may be, however, only a piece of Tacitean 

1 C. P. B, I. 416. 

2 C. p. B. I. 182, translation of Vigfusson and Powell. 

3 Zur Kritik d. Valhollglauhens, P.-B. Beit. XII. 238. 

4 Material for Scandinavian belief, C. P. B. I. 415 f . 
2 Germ. XXVII. 6 ut gi-avem defunctis. 



354 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

rhetoric, with chief application to the pomp of Roman 
burial. Certainly the dead were thought to continue 
their existence in the tomb, and hence we find the 
earliest barrow built in the shape of a house, where 
the body or even the ashes of the old freeman could 
still find a home. The Viking who lived on the sea 
was fain to have a ship-tomb. If we may believe 
many writers on sociology, the temple of worship is 
merely a development of the house built over the 
dead, where the altar represents the sepulchre itself. 
The custom of carrying food to graves and of eating 
near them, is a survival of the greater banquets and 
sacrificial ceremonies at the tomb, where the dead and 
the living were supposed to share the feast. Drink- 
ing with the dead became drinking to the dead ; hence 
the Roman libation and our modern silent toast, 
known in olden times as the Minne Drink. "At the 
burial of a [Scandinavian] king, a beaker was pre- 
sented which was called BragafuU ; every one present 
arose, made a solemn vow and emptied it. . . . This 
custom was not given up at the conversion, but one 
drank the minne of Christ or of Mary or of one of 
the saints."^ Miyme is "loving memorj^" The erji or 
wake in Old Norse times was a most important affair, 
and we read of guests to the number of fourteen hun- 
dred ; while in England the arval or arvil was kept up 
until comparatively modern times, with such outlay 
for food and drink that " it cost less to portion off a 
daughter than to bury a dead wife." ^ Jordanes tells 
of the endless feasting and drinking of the Huns at 
the burial of Attila, a ceremony Avhich was called 

1 Grimm, D. M^ 48 f . See also Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. 96, and 
references. 2 Brand, " Funeral Entertainments." 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 355 

strava} Moreover, the games which were celebrated 
at the funeral of an important personage seemed to 
have been meant in the earliest times as an affair in 
which the dead man took actual part. For some rea- 
son these feasts and games were specially forbidden 
by clerical authorities ; but an easy compensation 
was offered in a custom which amounted to little less 
than actual worship of the dead, — the saints'-days 
celebrated by the church. " All Souls " is a signifi- 
cant name. A general feast, which we may take to 
have been in honor of the dead, w^as held by the 
ancient Germans, and is mentioned by Widukind, 
abbot of the monastery at Corvey on the Weser, who 
about 980 wrote a history of the (continental) Saxons. 
" Thereupon ^ for three days they held their feast of 
victory, shared the booty, paid the wonted military 
honors to their slain companions, and praised unmeas- 
uredly the courage of their general. . . . Now all 
this happened, as runs the tradition of our forefathers, 
on the first of October, and these heathen festivals 
have been changed by the consecration of pious men, 
into fasting and prayer and offerings for all departed 
Christian souls." ^ There can be no doubt that Widu- 
kind's story deals with no isolated event, but with an 
immemorial Germanic rite. 

This time-honored and doubtless precious ceremony 
of Germanic heathendom the church accepted with 
but slight modification. It was called the feast of 
All Souls, and was placed, not far from its old date, 
on the second day of November; autumn is the 

1 Jordan. XLIX. 

2 After a great victory over the Thuringians in the sixth century. 

3 Widukind (in Geschichtschreiber d. deuvach. VorTKit) I. 12. Cf. 
also W. Miiller, System, p. 74. 



866 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

proper season for any memento mori, and with the 
equinoctial storms, the fall of leaf, the frost, the roar 
of winds when Woden and his train of spirits sweep 
the sky, man easily blends the universal picture of 
decay and the remembrance of parted souls.^ The 
meaning of this All-Souls festival lingered long among 
the peasants of modern Europe, and does not lack 
analogy in older systems. Grimm ^ sees connection 
between this feast, when people visit graveyards 
and lay garlands on the tomb, and the three festal 
days in Roman custom, when the underworld was 
thought to open and the spirits to revisit upper air. 
On the night of the second of November, the Estho- 
nians set out food for the spirits ; and near Dorpat, 
souls of the departed are then received in the bath- 
room and, one after the other, bathed. That the 
church has so purged away the grosser elements of 
this festival and made it a memorial service, does 
infinite credit to those who brought about the change ; 
and it reflects little honor on the Protestants to have 
abolished it.^ 

Such universal worship of the dead reflected the 
private and particular custom. Every hearthstone 
was an altar, and the father of the family was its 
priest. Wherever settled abodes "were known, this 
altar was hallowed, and in many cases the fli^e burned 
there without intermission throughout the year. Here 
lingered the ancestral spirits, protecting and helpful ; 
and here the head of the family offered to them food 
and drink, asked their help, cast lots, and sang the 

1 See Pfannenschmidt, Erntefeste, p. 128, 165. 2 j), 3/.4 iq\^ note 1. 
3 It has been restored in the reformed chnrch of Prussia and Saxony. 
Pfannenschmidt, Erntefeste, p. 168. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 357 

incantation. The great memorial feasts of the people 
which Widukind describes were matched by the 
private feasts of the different families. The funeral 
itself was only the first of a series of feasts; the 
dead man took his place among the ancestral spirits, 
and the survivors shared with him and his new asso- 
ciates the food, the di'ink, the song, and the dance. 
In the eighth century, popes were forced to forbid 
the too outspoken heathen character of a popular 
funeral, the " profana sacrilegia mortuorum." ^ We 
have seen ^Ifric's advice to the priests of England 
that they should not frequent funerals of this sort. 
But the church was far too wise to undertake any 
sweeping measure. The old rites were forbidden so 
far as the grosser heathen characteristics of them 
were concerned, or were changed, when it was prac- 
ticable, into petty ceremonies, or, finally, were per- 
mitted to endure in a lingering and for the most part 
dwindling survival. For English customs, the col- 
lection of Brand ^ gives ample material ; and the 
survivals of southern Germany and Switzerland have 
been carefully studied by Rochholz.^ Whoever, in 
Switzerland, has the duty of watching with a corpse, 
must have unlimited supply of brandy and wine. 
Prodigality and reckless expenditure prevail among 
this otherwise economical and thrifty race so soon as 
a funeral is concerned ; they believe that any mean- 
ness displayed at this time on the part of the heirs 
will rob the dead man of his rest in the grave. It is 

1 Cf. Pfannenschmidt, Erntefeste, p. 166; the pope is Gregory III. in 
739. 

2 Antiquities, " Watching with the Dead." 

3 Deutscher Glaube w. Branch im Spiegel d. heidnischen Vorzeit, I. 
194 ff., 299 fif. 



358 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

not hard to summon a host of parallel cases, from the 
funeral of an Irish Romanist to-day, back to the pecu- 
liar ceremonies among the Finnish tribes described 
to King Alfred by the sailor Wulfstan. During one 
of these peasant funerals in Switzerland the bake- 
oven in the house of death must not become cold for 
the space of three days between decease and burial ; 
bread and cheese are free to all comers. Food of 
this sort, thinks the peasant, gives far more strength 
than does one's daily bread: an ounce goes as far 
now as two pounds eaten at another time ! ^ A per- 
son known as the Leidfrau or mourning-woman is 
charged with the main ceremonies ; and cases ^ are 
on record where a part of her duty was to offer bread, 
salt, and wine to the spirits of the house, the ancestral 
souls. Before the coffin is closed — we are still with 
Rochholz's Swiss peasants — each member of the 
family grasps in farewell the hand of the deceased. 
During the actual bearing of the body to its last 
resting-place, bread and wine are distributed. The 
burial over, — and the corpse of the Christian peasant 
like that of his heathen ancestor must be buried fac- 
ing east, — there are thirty days of mourning; the 
third, the seventh, and the thirtieth of these are cele- 
brated by certain rites in the church. Every morn- 
ing, however, the Leidfrau goes to mass ; says thirty 
pater-nosters at the grave on the first, and one less 
each day during the month ; and has numerous other 
duties to perform, in return for which she has pre- 
scribed allowance of food and drink, a new garment, 
and, above all, place at the funeral-feasts. These, as 
Rochholz says, make the chief article of the Swiss 

1 Eochholz, p. 195. 2 As late as 1860 in Servia. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 359 

peasant's luxury in life. Peasants of to-day still think 
the more they eat and drink at a funeral, " the better 
it is for the dead." Church and state have been trying 
for a thousand years to reduce the size and cost of 
these banquets ; and here we see again the ethical 
character of Christianity face to face with the merely 
ceremonial nature of heathendom. The church could 
not brook singing, revel, and actual dancing at this 
solemn ceremony, and held up the duty of genuine 
sorrow for the dead. Repeated decrees insisted on 
the " diabolical " character, " contrary to human na- 
ture," of such customs ; and forbade as far as possible 
the rude revelry and noise. Such remains of the old 
habit as were tolerated by the authorities became in 
due time the theme of attack by reforming opponents 
of the church ; and as late as our own century there 
are cases of actual dancing in honor of the dead, 
preceded of course by a sort of memorial service, in 
mourning garb, within the church.^ Add to these 
grosser survivals the minor superstitions of peasants 
everywhere in Europe, the bit of food flung into 
the fire, thrown out of the window, or set upon 
the roof "for the poor spirits," the lore of house- 
goblins, and the little observances of the same 
sort practised by the laborer in the field, — all 
these things point to the once universal cult of the 
dead.2 

Where survival seemed dangerous, and where 
actual uprooting was unwise, the church turned a 
heathen ceremony into a special Christian rite. The 

1 Rochholz, p. 317. 

'•2 For feasts with the dead, see further Tylor, Primitive Culture, 
Chaps. XI., XII., and particularly Vol. II. 30 ff. 



360 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

offerings to the dead^ were converted into gifts for 
the parish poor; and we even find the two objects 
recognized for the same act. Thus Rochholz quotes 
from the Confessions of St. Augustine an account 
of the practice of eating and drinking among the 
graves, and giving a share to the poor, — a custom 
of certain Christians in which the pious mother of 
the saint had shared. But in more modern times the 
feeding of the poor has excluded older rites. Poor 
and sick folk took the place of the dead; and the 
gifts of corn and wine were often fixed for certain 
days, especially when the benefaction assumed the 
form of a legacy or a gift of the dead man's heirs. 
As regards the original purpose of offerings to the 
spirit, it is needless to point out how closely the prac- 
tice of buying masses for the dead would fit ancestral 
notions. Tylor^ quotes the invective of a Manichsean 
who charges the Christians with keeping the heathen 
ceremonial under a new name : " Their sacrifices 
indeed ye have turned into love-feasts, their idols 
into martyrs, whom with like vows ye worship ; ye 
appease the shades of the dead with wine and meals, ye 
celebrate the Gentiles' solemn days with them. . . ." ^ 
Thus the church, true to its general theory that sorrow 
of a practical character should take the place of mere 
revel and a crass notion of the dead man's participation, 
instituted the solemn ceremony of masses for the dead, 
an infinite gain over older and ruder rites. With 

1 An allusion to this among other races is found in Tobit, iv. 17. 
" Pour out thy bread on the burial of the just, but give nothing to the 
wicked." 

2 p. C. II. 34 f . Cf. also Hampson, Medii JEvi KaUndariam, 53 f . 

3 Tylor (p. 35) gives a number of survivals, coming down to modern 
times. 



THE WOKSHIP OF THE DEAD 361 

the steady growth of the doctrines concerning purga- 
tory, masses for the dead assumed an oyerwhelming 
importance. Moreover, the church encouraged the 
worship of patron-saints, and in this way kept up a 
venerable institution of heathendom. For the patron- 
saint seems to be legitimate successor of the " guard- 
ian angel," the " genius," and that attendant spirit in 
which the old Germans believed. Germanic belief gave 
to every man a protecting spirit or follower ; we find 
the best information on the matter in Scandinavian 
records.^ In the later development of Norse mythol- 
ogy, the Yalkyrias seem often to take this part ; they 
follow and protect a chosen hero, and at his death 
conduct him to Valhalla. In the legends of later 
Europe, maDy a wood-fay, white lady, or fairy, 
may still become in this way the protecting spirit 
of some hero and share his mortal love. We have seen 
Svava waiting on her Helgi, and Sigrun protecting 
Helgi Hundingsbani ; Sigrdrifa, who is really Bryn- 
hild, loves Sigurd.^ But men believed in a more pro- 
saic spirit, — a far older belief than this offspring of 
the Viking age, — the fylgja^ an imdsible guardian, 
only to be seen when one was nigh unto death. We 
remember how Drusus, just before his fatal accident, 
saw a sort of fylgja ; it was in the shape of a bar- 
barian woman, gigantic in form, who told him he 
dare go no further. So Alexander Severus saw a 
similar figure that prophesied misfortune ; and even 
Attila was confronted by a rune-maiden who warned 
him thrice : " Back, Attila I " In the NiaUmga? a 
heathen Icelander is converted under the condition 

1 Survivals collected by Rochholz, I. 92-130. -2 Grimm, Z). M.^ 351. 
3 C. 101. 



362 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

that he may have the Archangel Michael for his 

" following angel," /?/Z^ya ew(/z7Z ; and Grimm ^ notes 

that Michael was the Christian receiver of souls. To 

see this following-spirit meant death ; sometimes one 

saw it in shape of beast or bird. Bjarki saw his as a 

bear; raven, and later, swan, perform a similar office.^ 

An English name for this fylgja is the fetch^ familiar 

enough in popular superstition ; while its highest type 

is the conception of a general " following-spirit," fate 

itself, to which our ancestors gave the name of 

Wyrd., — 

The wirdes that we clepen destanye, 

as Chaucer^ puts it. This conception of overmastering 
and irrevocable fate makes dark background in our 
oldest epic, existing side by side with Christian influ- 
ences. " Wyrd wove me this," says the Anglo-Saxon ; 
and approaching death is stated in similar terms: 
"thy Wyrd stands near thee." The weird sisters 
survive in Macbeth, and are to be considered more 
particularly in another chapter. ''I thought I saw 
dead women, poorly clad, come in here to-night ; 
they wished to choose thee, ..." says one who will 
prophesy to Gunnar his approaching death.* 

The "familiar spirit" is not far off from this 
fylgja ; and both of course belong to spirit-cidt. 
Moreover, very old expressions of our language show 
this notion of a spirit not under our absolute control 
— its precise relation to the ego was hardly matter of 

1 D. M. 730. The festivals of St. Michael, says Hampson, are obvi- 
ously purposed " to give countenance to the worship of angels." Medii 
^vA Kalenclarium, II. 140. They are also connected with the doctrine 
of tutelar spirits. See Brand, Antiquities, under " Michaelmas." 

2 D. MA III. 26G. 3 Legende Goode Women, " Ypermystre." 
^ Atlamdl in C. P. B. I. 335, V. and P.'s translation. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 363 

Germanic speculation — abiding within us and mov- 
ing us without our wish or will. "It ran into his 
mind" is our "occur"; but what was the "it"? Men 
believed that during dream or trance, the soul in 
visible shape, — a mouse or a snake, for example, — 
could desert the body ; and they seem also to have 
believed that something not oneself spoke within 
one's own bosom. When a man begins to talk, he 
" unlocks the word-hoard " ; when he will be silent, 
he bolts and bars his breast. Instead of " he spake," 
the poet of Beowulf says : " the point of the word 
brake through the breast-hoard " ; and in another 
place, " he let the word fare out." ^ Indeed, it was 
no metaphor for our Germans when they said that 
the spirit of his ancestors spake from the breast of 
the son. On this inner voice, however, we must not 
lay too much emphasis ; for the fylgja was mostly 
conceived as outside of one, a comrade and follower. 
The conception could widen from an individual's 
fylgja to the good genius of family, clan, or race. In 
the church, St. Michael took these old functions upon 
himself ; and Michaelmas is set apart, as Bourne sug- 
gests, for the election of municipal officers, "the civil 
guardians of the peace of men, perhaps . . . because 
the feast of angels naturally enough brings to our 
minds the old opinion of tutelar spirits, who have, or 
are thought to have, the particular charge of certain 
bodies of men or districts of country, as also that 
every man has his guardian angel who attends him 
from the cradle to the grave." ^ 

In many other ways the church perpetuated certain 
forms of this cult of the dead. Conspicuous martyi's, 

1 Beow. 2792. See Bode, Kenningar, p. 43. - Brand, " Michaelmas." 



364 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

prelates, and others were canonized and practically 
worshipped, so that the strongly rooted custom might 
bear its fruit on consecrated ground of clerical cere- 
monies. We may sum up the whole matter in the 
words of Mr. E. B. Tylor: "It is plain that in our 
time the dead still receive worship from far the 
larger half of mankind, and it may have been much 
the same ever since the remote periods of primitive 
culture in which the religion of the manes probably 
took its rise." ^ Where we are not concerned with 
actual worship, as soon as we leave creed and cere- 
mony and take up superstition, then we enter the 
great realm of ghosts ; here the old beliefs have 
found their haven of refuge. The dead still visit 
the glimpses of the moon, rise to demand blood for 
their own murder, come to warn or protect or scare, 
— what not: and all these faded superstitions have 
their roots in the ancient manes-cult. Precisely the 
same origin must be assigned to the famous night- 
onare ^ and all its relatives. The " mare," a word 
which Kuhn connected with Latin jnori^ is evidently 
in its original form a spirit, a dead person, who tram- 
ples or rides its victim to death. Thence the con- 
ception passes into that of a living person who 
has assumed this shape ; and so through all the 
grades of superstitious belief. Similar origin must 
be assigned to the tveretvolf, a person " clad " in a 
wolf,^ and evidently another offspring of the belief 
in spirits. But these various manifestations belong- 
rather to Germanic mythology than to our present 
subject. 

1 Primitive Culture, II. 123. 2 Mogk iu Paul's Grdr. p. 1013. 

^ Kegel's etjTiiolog^' in Mogk's article, p. 1017, uote. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 365 

The place where one meets the spirits, can summon 
them and appease them, is by preference the burial 
place; but they are also fond of crossways. The 
time is, of course, night ; and chiefly in the season of 
Christmas and New Year, when the nights are long- 
est. A host of superstitions and popular observances 
connected with this time of the year have their roots 
in the primitive customs of manes- worship. On St. 
Thomas's day, December 21st, in an English village 
it was till lately the custom to deposit five shillings 
in a hole in a certain tombstone in the churchyard ; 
this done, the lord of the manor could take no tithe 
of hay that year.^ 

1 Hampson, Medii jEvi Kalendarium, I. 83. 



V^ 



366 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 

Dualism in worship — Spirits of the natural world — House-spirits 
— Spirits of the air— The Mighty Women — Charms — The Wild 
Hunt — Spirits of the earth — Wood- spirits — Tree-worship — 
Water-spirits and well- worship — The Swan-maidens — Giants — 
Worship of the elements — Water, air, and fire — Mother Earth — 
Sun, moon, and stars — Day, night, and the seasons. 

It is not our province to discuss problems of my- 
thology, but a question must be asked in regard to the 
objects of Germanic worship. We have learned that 
the primitive German worshipped his ancestral spirits. 
Starting with this fact, many writers on anthropology 
endeavor to develop the v/hole system of Germanic 
deities from ancestor-worship alone. This we cannot 
admit. One often hears a remark quoted from Im- 
manuel Kant to the effect that two things filled him 
with wonder and awe, — the starry heavens above 
him and the sense of moral responsibility within him. 
Now for primitive man we may assume an analogous 
dualism, corresponding of course to the undeveloped 
condition of his intellect. The world of dreams and 
of consciousness gave him the conception of spirits 
and the impulse to worship them. On the other 
hand, from the start he m.ust have felt a not-himself 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 367 

— a not-Uke-hifuself — in the nature that surrounded 
him. We assume this dualism from the outset: a 
cult of ancestral spirits, which chiefly haunted the 
tomb and the underworld; and a cult of natural 
forces dimly felt to be instinct with life and volition. 
In other words, primitive man did not delay his wor- 
ship of natural forces until remote ancestors had 
become in some way identified with these forces. 
Storms might gather in the neighborhood of moun- 
tain graves, and might be attributed to ancestors, for 
wind and air belong to the spirits ; but the bolt of 
lightning had no analogy in any human act and was 
surely never regarded as the work of an ancestor. 
There must have been a gigantic storm-god from the 
beginning of human thought ; for if there was intel- 
lect enough to infer ancestral acts, there was fancy 
enough to imagine a superhuman power.^ 

Between the worship of ancestors, known and 
acknowledged as such, and the cult of great divinities 
like Woden, lay a border-land which is not to be 
rashly annexed to either kingdom. We prefer to 
treat this worship independently ; it dealt with spirits 
of the stream, the cave, the air, and the forest. 
Doubtless much of this worship once belonged to 
ancestors, but it soon ceased to be regarded as such. 
Spirits were supposed to haunt the secret places of 
nature, and were in many cases thought to be souls 
of departed men ; but from the start man must have 
felt that the water or the cloud or the cave had a 
population not entirely dependent on emigration from 

1 This is counter not only to the anthropological view, but also to 
the system of the philologist, E, H. Meyer, who assumes {Indogerm. 
My then, I. 87. 210 f.) that the Pandemonium came first and out of it 
grew the Pantheon. 



368 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the living world of men: he must have recognized 
at the outset a natura naturans. Ancestral spirits 
would belong to a general locality, and would have 
at heart the interests of family, clan, or race. Thus 
we find a curious law in Iceland about the precaution 
to be observed by shipmasters whose boats rode at 
anchor in the harbors. If these boats had figure- 
heads, — dragon, snake, or what not, — the prow 
was to be turned away from the shore so that the 
land-spirits should not be terrified.^ These are un- 
doubtedly the kindly spirits of the race, guardians 
and protectors of their old home. But spirits assigned 
to some particular element have not this intimate and 
ancestral quality ; and it was these latter spirits which 
became in our Christian era the object of bans and 
curses. 

From haunted spring and dale, 

Edged with poplar pale, 

The parting genius was with sighing sent. 

To " lay " spirits was business of the priest ; the sign 
of the cross reminded them of a lost empire and sent 
them in confusion to yet remoter haunts. Thence, 
however, they can still be invoked, as Wagner reminds 
Faust, by the presumptuous and reckless man who 
does not shrink from dealings with them. To ban 
spirits and to invoke them are arts not so widely sun- 
dered as might be supposed ; and the old spirit-cult 
lent itself readily to the new ceremonies of the 
church. The carpenter in Chaucer's Miller's Tale^ 
avails himself of such a form when he wishes to cure 
the clerk of his pretended trance : — 

1 Maurer, Bek. d. norweg. Stamme, II. 231; Landndma, IV. 7. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 369 

"Awake and thynk on Cristes passioun. 

I crowchei the from elves and from wightes." 

Therwith the night-spel seyde he anon rightes, 

On the four halves of the hous aboute, 

And on the threisshfold of the dore withoute. 

" Lord Jhesu Crist, and seynte Benedight, 

Blesse this hous from every wikkede wight, 

Fro nyghtes mare werye the with Pater-noster ; 

Wher wonestow now, seynte Petres soster?" 

This passage ^ Tyrwhitt suspects "to be an interpo- 
lation"; but a good old English charm it is most 
undoubtedly, whether Chaucer's insertion or not. 

One class of spirits to be noticed at the outset have 
nothing to do with natural forces, and evidently be- 
long entirely to the ancestral division. These are 
the house-spirits. Robin Goodfellow is a well-known 
English representative of the class. They dwell in 
cellar, garret, stall, corncrib, and closet; they are 
mostly invisible, but often appear as little men in 
grotesque raiment, pointed hat, and boots. Another 
sort of home-spirits remain invisible, and it is to 
avoid pinching or hurting these that one is admon- 
ished not to slam doors, throw knives about, and so 
forth. The cult of these spirits exists to this day in 
some shape. Food is given to them, and in reward 
they do all sorts of household work ; ^ our literature 
abounds in references to their ministrations. 

With spirits of the air^ we enter upon a field 
where the mystery of natural forces is joined to the 

1 Make the sign of the cross. 

2 Miller's Tale, 291 fe., Aldine editiou of Chaucer, II. 107. 

3 D. MA 422 f . 

4 St. Augustine divides "in deos, .homines, dsemones. . . . Nam 
deorum sedes in cselo, hominum in terra, iu sere dsemouum." C. D. 
Vni. 14, quoted IJ. J/.4 III. 122. 



370 GEKMANIC ORIGINS 

worship of the dead. The air is of course full of 
spirits, for the very name of "spirit" shows this 
affinity; and we must try to sunder two elements 
in the cult of these mysterious beings. The old cus- 
tom of " feeding the wind " at the approach of a storm 
is a case in point. The rising wind is connected with 
ancestral spirits ; we know that when, for example, 
a man is hanged, or meets an equally violent death, 
there always arises a sudden gust of wind. The 
food, therefore, is partly meant for these unfortunate 
spirits, who seem to murmur ominously in the rising 
gale. But besides the souls, there is something 
superhuman in the storm itself, an indefinite animat- 
ing presence which the worshipper desires to propiti- 
ate: and hence a part of the offering goes to this 
mysterious power. Thus the beings who haunt the 
air are doubtless to be referred in part to the wor- 
ship of ancestors ; but with them is connected the 
mystery of the element itself. As the spirits retire 
further and further from their ghostly character, they 
acquire more and more of the terrible and the over- 
whelming. 

Let us take, first of all, the dis of Scandinavian 
superstition, a word which Grimm connects mth the 
Anglo-Saxon ides (woman), and which is found as 
final syllable in many Norse names. The guardian 
angel is often a dis; or the word may stretch far 
enough to include the notion of a ''goddess." We 
read of a temple of the disir in Scandinavian worship, 
of sacrifice to them (^disahldt)^ and of a scald or poet 
who sang in their honor.^ ''One harvest," — we 
note the season of year, — " there was made a great 

1 Cleasby-Vigfusson, Icelandic Diet, s.ik 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 371 

sacrifice to the woman-spirits (disahldf) at King Alf s, 
and Alfhild performed the sacrifice . . . and in the 
night, as she was reddening the high-place, Starkad 
carried her away.^ " These woman-spirits are some- 
times friendly, sometimes hostile, and on the whole 
seem to be the sublimated wise-woman whom the 
German reverenced in life for her prophetic and 
sacred nature, a "magnified and non-natural" Yeleda 
of the unseen world. Such disir are said to have 
made away with mortals,^ and it is good to propi- 
tiate them with the disahl6t. They are distinctly 
connected with graves and spirits of the dead, as 
Grimm points out from the use of such a phrase as 
hl6ta kumla disir^ " to sacrifice to the women of the 
tombs." As active in human affairs, they journey 
about doing help or harm ; but unlike their elder 
sister, the implacable Wyrd, these mighty women 
may be pacified or cajoled with a gift. It seems 
to be a very old notion that mystic and supernat- 
ural women attend the birth of children and have 
abiding influence on the destiny of those who are 
born under their auspices. They are to be treated 
liberally, — the uninvited fairy of our story-books as 
a warning ! Since all unseen ills come from unseen 
persons, as even death in battle by a visible weapon 
must be referred to a mysterious personality, — " if 
War shall take me off," says Beowulf in no abstract, 
modern way, — so the old German felt an impulse to 
propitiate or baffle the powers that did him secret 
harm. Anglo-Saxon literature contains some striking 
survivals of this cult of the mighty women. In the 
strange mixture of pedantry and superstition known 

1 Herv. Saga, apud C. P. B. I. 405. 2 2), j/.4 333. 



372 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

as Salomon and Saturn^^ our Hebrew monarch de- 
scribes the nature of Wyrd or fate, and gives some 
features which undoubtedly belonged to all the race 
of disir. As befits a fallen deity, Wyrd has in Salo- 
mon's description pronounced diabolical traits : — 

Wyrd is wrathful, she rushes upon us, 

she waketh weeping, with woe she loads us, 

she shoots the spirit, a spear she bears. 

The last line, a sort of prolepsis for "she carries a 
spear and hurls it at the spirit," is especially inter- 
esting to us on account of an Anglo-Saxon charm 
against rheumatism or a sudden " stitch " in the side. 
Hovering and mysterious woman-spirits, invisible 
often, and horsed upon sightless couriers of the air, 
send little spears or javelins at the unwary mortal, 
just as in nobler office the Valkyrias, concealed by 
the swan-raiment, flew above the clash of battle 
and protected a favorite warrior. With the advent 
of Christianity they all came into equal disrepute ; 
witness a suggestive gloss of the eighth century, • — 
''' Eurynis^ walcyrge. Eumenides^ hsehtisse." That 
is, the Furies, by interpretatio Saxonica^ are Valkyrias ; 
and the Eumenides are Jioegtessan^ or witches. Now 
the charm against rheumatism distinctly names the 
hcegtessan as authors of the trouble in question, and 
is here given in full translation : ^ — 

"Against sudden-stitch [take] feverfew, and red 
nettle which grows through the house, and dock 
(" waybroad ") : boil in butter [and say] : — 

1 Ed. J. M. Kemble. 

2 Original in Wulker-Grein, Bihl. d. ags. Poesie, I. 317 ; Cockayne, 
Leechdoms, III. 52 ff. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 373 

Loud were they, loud, o'er the law ^ as they rode, 
wrathful they were as they rode o'er the land : 
shield thee now, that thou mayst 'scape from the danger. 
Out, little spear, if in here thou be ! 

I stood under linden, 'neath light shield, 

where the Mighty Women their main ^ prepared, 

when they sent their screaming spears abroad. 

I will send in answer another spear, 

flying arrow forth against them. 

Out, little spear, if it in here be ! 

Sat smith, forged little knife, 
[angriest of iron, wondrous strong] .^ 
Out, little spear, if it in here be ! 

Six smiths sat, war-spears wrought. 
Out, spear ! be not in, spear ! 

If herewithin be aught of iron, 

work of witches,* it shall melt ! 

Wert thou shot in the fell, or wert shot in the flesh, 

or wert shot in the blood, [or wert shot in the bone] ^ 

or wert shot in the limb : be thy life never harmed ! ^ 

1 "Hill": Scottish "law." 

2 Strength. 

3 Rieger's emendation. The original has simply "iserna wund 
swiSe." Sweet reads this as "wounded with iron"; i.e. beaten "v^ath 
an iron hammer. 

4 Hsegtessan. See above. Our "hag" is the same word, probably 
from "hedge," as these baneful women may lurk behind hedges and 
copses. Compare for the English use of the word Herrick's spirited 
poem "The Hag." 

The hag is astride, 

This night for to ride, 
The devile and shee together, 

Through thick and through thin, 

Now out and now in, 
Though ne'er so foule be the weather. 

5 Verse so completed by J. Grimm. 

6 " Teased " ; i.e. plucked, tormented. 



374 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Were it shot of the gods,i or shot of the elves, ^ 
or were't shot of the hag, — I will help thee now. 
This to heal shot of gods : this to heal shot of elves : 
this to heal shot of hag : now I will help thee. 

Flee to the mountain-head ! ^ 
Whole be thou ! help thee God ! 

Take then the knife, throw it into water. 

The mythological importance of this charm is very 
evident. Its use in Anglo-Saxon times, with the 
faint touch of orthodoxy added to the last verse, 

1 Esa. The same root is preserved in the first syllable of Oswald, 
etc. The word occurring here is of great value, and shows the genuine 
heathendom of the charm. 6s, the singular, is the name of one of the 
runes, and has the general meaning " god," 

2 Etymology is here important. The word •' self " is familiar enough 
in itself and as first syllable of proper names like Alfred. Another 
form is "oaf": see Shakspere's " ouplies " in Merry Wives, IV. 4. 
For the facts, we have the interesting word " elf -arrow," applied in 
Scotland to certain stones, such as pieces of flint; also " elf bolt." 
These are believed to be actual missiles, such as our charm describes. 
Sick cattle in Xorway are said to be "aeliskudt," elf-shot. This term 
is also Scottish; see Grimm, D. MA 381. Brand says that in England 
as well as in Scotland those relics of the stone age — arrow-heads of 
flint — are popularly called elf-shots, and even the ignis-fatnus was 
called elf -fire. Cattle suffer from them, and, as Brand reminds us, 
Collins says in his Ode : — 

Then every herd by sad experience knows 
How wing'd with Fate, their elf-ehot arrows fly, 

WTien the sick ewe her summer food foregoes, 
Or etretch'd on earth the heart-smit heifers lie. 

Several diseases were named after elves : — water-elf disease, elf-hic- 
cough, and so on. Cockayne, Leechdoms, I. xhii. 

3 This is Sweet's reading, in Anglo-Saxon Reader, ^ p. 123, and the 
simplest. Grimm reads "Flee to the mountains [slie that sent the 
bolt] . Be thou whole in head! " In the above translation " flee " must 
refer to the little spear which caused the trouble ; a sequel to the com- 
mand "Out!" is the command "Flee!" We might of course read 
"fleo^" and refer to the Mighty Women. See Wiilker, Griindr. d. 
ags. Lit. p. 350. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 375 

points to an older ceremonial and a more exalted 
station. When its temple was ruined, this rite 
sought shelter in the cottage, nor was it confined 
to England; for references to these evil-working 
hags are found in Scandinavian literature. In 
the Hdvamdl Woden tells us the tenth item of 
his wisdom: "If I see hedge-riders dancing in 
the air, I prevail so that they go astray and can- 
not find their own skins and their own haunts." ^ 
They are elsewhere called " night-riders " and " mirk- 
riders " ; one of them is seen to ride a wolf at 
twilight.^ 

While these fashions of the mighty women bring us 
close to modern witchcraft, we may also look at them 
in their more warlike functions. Those stern old 
German women whom we saw among the Cimbrians 
and Teutons in Italy, or who, according to Tacitus, 
were wont in their own borders to rally a wavering 
line of battle, are only mortal models for the invisi- 
ble beings who hover over a battle-field, help their 
favorites, and hinder the enemy. Such are the super- 
natural women mei^ioned in an old German spell, 
found by Waitz in a manuscript of the cathedral library 
at Merseburg, and presented with comment and trans- 
lation by Jacob Grimm to the Berlin Academy of 
Sciences.^ The handwriting is of the early tenth 
century. As usual with charms and spells, — for ex- 
ample, the Anglo-Saxon spell just given, — we have 
an epic opening, three verses of description, and then 
the application, or spell proper, in the fourth line. 

1 C. p. B. I. 27. 2 Ibid. I. 95, 146. 

3 1842. See Grimm's Kl. Schr. II. 1 ff. 



376 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



Some bound bonds : some hindered the host : ^ 

some unfastened the fetters.^ 

' Spring from fetters : fly from the foe ! ' " ^ 

Not SO grandly supernatural as these shadowy god- 
desses of battle are the " balewise women " against 
whom the Scandinavian warrior was warned. " The 
sons of men need an eye of foresight wherever the 
fray rages, for balewise^ women often stand near the 
way, blunting swords and mind." This blunting of 
weapons by Witchcraft was common enough in old 
Germanic times. Certain runes on the blade could 
do it, and such a weapon was for serif en; a work 
attributed in Salomon and Saturn to the agency 
of the devil. " On the [doomed man's] w^eapon 
the devil writeth a mass of fatal signs, baleful 
letters; he ' f orscribeth ' the blade, the glory of the 
sword." ^ 

In this place may be mentioned the agency of 
" witches " in raising storms. This has become in 
later times a function of witchcraft and a prerogative 
of Laplanders ; but in the old days it was an affair of 
greater dignity, and belonged doubtless to these same 
supernatural women of the night, as well as to the 
god of storm and wind himself. Spells were uttered 

1 Those who bind bonds are helping the victors, and make fetters for 
the prisoners ; those who hinder the host are actively embarrassing the 
enemy. 

2 That is, the fetters of those warriors of the favored army who had 
been captured. Thus the first group of women are in rear of the favor- 
ite army, the second at the line of battle, the third behind the hostile 
army. (Scherer.) 

3 This is what the women say to the prisoners, and is the ef&cacious 
word in any similar situation. 

4 Horrible, detestable, devilish. « S. and S. 162 f. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 377 

against hailstorms ; ^ strange beings were appealed to 
for protection, and in course of time these became 
Christian saints. 

Lastly, we come to the thinly disguised worship of 
ancestral spirits, which we find in the customs and 
myths connected with the so-called "wild hunt." 
Woden, the god of wind and storm, is their leader ; 
but the hunt itself, the rout of spirits that howl along 
the wintry sky, are undoubtedly the souls of the dead. 
The myth is universal in Germanic traditions,^ and 
abounds in all collections of legendary and popular 
lore; but the characteristic features of a hunt, the 
bark of dog and crack of whip, have all been added 
to what was originally a mere clamor of passing souls. 
A definite cult is hardly to be discovered ; the subject 
lies wholly in the province of myth and legend. We 
may note, however, the custom of feeding the wind, to 
which we have made reference above. In Carinthia, 
about the time of Christmas, this custom is very gen- 
erally observed.^ "In Swabia, Tyrol, and the Upper 
Palatinate, when the storm rages, they will fling a 
spoonful or a handful of meal in the face of the gale, 
with this formula in the last-named district, ' Da Wind, 
hast du Mehl fiir dein Kind, aber aufhoren musst 
du ! ' " * It was not simply the spirits who were to be 
appeased; the shadowy dread itself, the storm-god, 
was an object of cult as early — we are persuaded — 
as the ancestral souls themselves. 



ID. if.4 529; III. 493, 4991. 

2 Liebrecht, Otia Imperialia of Gervas. Tilb. 173 ff. See also D. MA 
765 fE. ; Mogk in Paul's Grdr. 1002 f . 

3 Mythen aus Karnthen, by Pogatschnigg in Pfeiffer's Germania, 
II. 75. 

4 Tylor, P. C. II. 269, 407, from Wuttke, Volksabergl. p. 86. 



378 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

In passing from the cult of these spirits of the air, 
and taking up the scanty remains of such ceremonies 
as may have been meant for spirits of the earth, we 
are reminded how difficult it is to show the necessary 
relation between modern superstitions and an ancient 
worship. In the majority of cases we must content 
ourselves with a probability. Creatures of the under- 
world, who live in cave or hillside, are particularly 
plentiful in Norse traditions : they belong mainly to 
the province of mythology, but here and there we 
have a glimpse of systematic worship and ceremo- 
nies. Burial would naturally bring the lore of elves 
and dwarfs of the hillside into close connection with 
the traditions of the family dead. The Kormakssaga^ 
testifies to Scandinavian worship of these dwarfs and 
elves. A bull was killed, its blood was sprinkled 
on the hill of the elves, and with its flesh a sacrificial 
feast was made in their honor. Here we are evi- 
dently not far from the funeral-mound, and the offer- 
ings set out upon ancestral graves. Grimm notes 
that in the Netherlands people call such hills as hap- 
pen to contain burial-urns alfenhergen. Graves were 
marked by stones, and we hear a great deal in decrees 
of the church concerning worship at sacred stones ; ^ 
offerings were brought to these places long after the 
notion of direct ancestor-worship had faded away. 
Often there was an enclosure, as well as a stone. 
Anglo-Saxon laws provided a penalty for any one 
who should deliberately lay out such an enclosure — 
for purposes of the cult — "about stone or tree or 
well."^ The Scandinavians sacrificed at home to 

iSeei).iJ/.4 370. 

2 For stones as sacred in themselves, see Pfannenschmid, Erntefeste, 
p. 21 ff. 3 Schmid, p. 368 (" Northumbrian Priest Law "). 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 379 

these creatures. " The surly housewife," says a Norse 
poet, "that turned me away like a wolf, said that 
they were holding a Sacrifice to the Elves within her 
homestead." ^ This household cult of the elves was, 
of course, frowned upon by the church; hence the 
antipathy felt by all the elvish race for church-bells, 
holy-water, and similar belongings of a worship which 
was stamping out their own cult.^ The elves of 
modern folk-lore invariably lament the good old 
times ; people, they wail, have now begun " to count 
the loaves in the oven," "to make marks on the 
loaf," and what not. Of Elfland, the elf -queen, and 
all the myths of faery, we find ample account; as 
to the cult itself, we must be content with a general 
conclusion gathered from the host of more or less 
evident survivals. The " good people," whether 
elves of " mount " or " dune," are ready to help men 
in return for the trifling but necessary payment; 
their best work is that of the forge, the loom, or the 
oven. Weapons they will make of the best ; in all 
sorts of household labor, such as spinning and weav- 
ing, they excel ; and it is notorious that their bread 
and cake are unsurpassed. Moreover, they know 
and impart the secrets of medicinal herbs and stones 
of virtue. In return they often demand the aid of 
human beings, and particularly in three cases.^ Elf- 
women in travail desire the aid of a mortal nurse ; 
when elf-men divide treasure, or fall into dispute, 
they often call in a wise mortal to assist them ; and 
they often borrow a room in some man's dwelling 
where they may hold an elfin wedding-feast. In all 
these cases they give rich compensation to the mortal 

1 C. P. B. II. 131. 2 2). i)f.4 380, 401. 3 ibid. 378. 



380 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

in question, but instances of their mischievous and 
harmful nature are plentiful enough. In all proba- 
bility these traditions arose with the spread of Chris- 
tianity and the consequent discredit thrown upon 
elvish ways. Evil of their sending fell upon men and 
cattle ; the elf-shot, as we have just seen, was justly 
dreaded ; and spells and charms which once perhaps 
invoked their aid were turned against them, and in- 
tended to put them under ban. Analogous with the 
mass of mediaeval stories which tell how men cheated 
the devil out of a bargain for soul or service, are the 
legends of troll or dwarf defrauded in similar fashion. 
The favorite bargain was for " heart and eyes " of a 
mortal if he failed to keep his pact ; but if the mortal 
could call the troll by name, the obligation was 
forthwith cancelled. Such is the legend which 
Whittier has put into verse in his " Kallundborg 
Church." The oldest race of elves, however, were 
surely friends of man; in evidence, we may call 
upon those fossil-like witnesses of a vanished wor- 
ship, the names of places and persons. The wide- 
spread cult of elves has left its trace in local com- 
pounds like ^IfesMn ^ or the more familiar personal 
names of Alfred, ^Ifgifu (" elf -gift"), and the like. 
Mingled Germanic and Celtic traditions meet us in 
the story of Arthur's mystic birth, as told by Eng- 
lish Layamon. Elves take him at his birth, sing- 
charms over him, and give him many blessings ; for 
one of his battles an elf-smith makes him a noble 
coat of mail.2 

1 Leo, Rectitud. Singnl. Person, p. 5. 

2 Layamon's Brut, ed. Madden, II. 384, 463, and Ten Brink, Eng. 
Lit. p. 238. 



/ THE AVOESHIP OF NATURE 381 

The dwarf-cult is not entirely a matter of ancestor- 
worship. In some cases a conquered race, often in- 
ferior in size to the conquerors, has been thrust into 
remote and desert regions, into the hills and wilds, 
and has thus passed into tradition as a race of dwarfs. 
Such a race is naturally feeble and despised in any 
comparisons of outright valor; but in a sort of re- 
venge, the reputation of witchcraft and secret power 
of doing harm attaches to them and makes them 
feared. Hence the reputation of the Lapps, whom 
the Scandinavian Aryans conquered.^ 

It was an evident piece of reasoning for the ancient 
world to connect the mysteries of vegetation with 
the benefactions of those spirits who housed below 
the earth. A mass of material has been collected 
by Wilhelm Mannhardt illustrating the ceremonies 
observed by European peasants in connection with 
seed-time and harvest.^ These customs are mainly 
indicative of older ceremonies which had in view 
a helpful spirit, to whom offering was made, and 
a harmful demonic being which is still exorcised 
in varying fashion. Myths may be guessed behind 
many a modern legend, and find parallel in the 
records of Greek and Roman mythology. We shall 
presently find occasion to trace certain Germanic 
rites in their relation to the goddess of fertility 
and vegetation, as well as to the spirits which were 
more directly identified with the kindly elements 
themselves. 

1 Tylor, P. C. I. 386. 

2 Mannhardt, Die Korndsemonen ; AntiTce Wald- u. Feldkulte, Bd. 
II.; Roggenwolf u. Roggenhund ; and Mythologische Forschungen, a 
posthumous book, being No. 51 of the Quellen w. Forschungen. 



382 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Spirits haunted the Germanic forest, and the mys- 
terious whisper of its foliage was their evident mur- 
mur and message to the man who could rede it.^ 

Feld hath eyen, and the wood hath eres, 

says Chaucer ; but to older men the wood had also a 
tongue. Germans were children of the woods, and 
sacred trees abounded in their tradition. As Grimm 
pointed out,^ and as everybody now repeats, even the 
Gothic cathedral has imitated in its plan the climbing 
and arching branches of a German forest ; while the 
endless variety of detail easily suggests the labyrinth 
of twig and foliage. In speaking of the spirits of 
this forest, we feel sure that emigration from the 
human world is not to account for all of them or for 
their entire nature ; something of the mystery and 
personified activity of the forest itself was in them 
from the beginning. The doctrine ^ that trees were 
simply habitation of the gods, — that is to say, a sort 
of fetish, — is one extreme ; the other is Grimm's 
belief that it was the actual tree which our fore- 
fathers worshipped.* 

We have to do at present not with the sacred grove 
and the forest sanctuary, which are to be considered 
in connection with the heathen temple, but rather 
with the spirits of the wood. In an Anglo-Saxon 
glossary of the tenth or the eleventh century,^ " Dry- 
ades " has the gloss ivuduelfen^ wood-elves, while 

1 Again we are indebted to Mannhardt for an excellent collection of 
material in his Baumkidtus, the first volume of the Antike Wald- u. 
Feldktdte. 

2 D. MA 56. 3 Held, for example, by Lippert. 4 x). M. 60. 
5 Wright- Willker, A.-S. and O.-E. Vocabularies, col. 189. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 383 

" Hamadryades " are wylde elfen^ and " Castalides " 
dunelfen, dune or hill elves. " Satyrii vel Fauni " 
are glossed as unfoele men^ unclean men; but, as 
Wright remarks, this is probably transposed from 
another place, and the gloss should be wuduwasan; 
indeed, woodwose is given as the definition of Satyrs 
in a dictionary of the year 1608. Very interesting 
is the gloss ^ for Echo, toudumcer^ wood-mare, the 
being which answers folk out of the wood and has 
the same deceptive nature as its more violent rela- 
tive, the nightmare. In all these names and glosses 
we see a certain similarity between classical and 
mediaeval wood-lore ; in fact, we must be on our 
guard when learned men of the middle ages cata- 
logue contemporary heathen practices. A just de- 
cision is often difficult. Thus in the list taken by 
Grimm ^ from Burchard of Worms, mention is made 
of certain "agrestes feminse quas silvaticas vocant,"^ 
women of the wood who appear and vanish and oft 
times accept a mortal lover. Here classical parent- 
age seems an easy inference ; yet we must bear in « 
mind what a store of similar notions inform later 
and even modern folk-lore. From our oldest myths 
down to these peasant stories of to-day, the wood is 
peopled with mystic beings, mainly women. Classi- 
fication of these belongs of course elsewhere ; ^ here 
it is our task to trace their cult. Not very much 
importance may be put upon the " weird lady of the 
woods " whom Grimm mentions ^ as named in a poem 
— he gives no title — in Percy's Reliques. It is 
"The Birth of St. George," where the weird lady 

1 W.-W. col. 391. 2 x>. itf.4 III. 404 ff. s i^id. 409. 
4 Ibid. 357 ff . 5 Ibid. 337. 



384 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

from her cave, which is described as a most uncanny- 
place, prophesies the future of Lord Albert's unborn 
child ; she is sought for advice, is able to foretell the 
future, and is in touch with a deal of supernatural 
machinery. Like the water-women, the ladies of the 
wood have the old sibyl nature ; and Grimm reminds 
us that Yeleda herself dwelt amid the forest. So we 
approach ancestor-worship, and are made to think of 
the "women of the tomb " ; indeed, one reading of a 
passage already quoted,^ makes disguised Odin learn 
his wisdom from the " old people who live in the 
forests,^^ where other texts read " graves." Related, 
in like manner, to ancestor-worship is the household 
cult of a spirit who dwells in some tree near the 
family dwelling and feels a peculiar interest in the 
welfare of the race. By Swedish folk-lore, one must 
not only abstain from cutting or breaking the tree 
itself, — on penalty of the spirit's departure, and with 
him all luck of the house, — but also there must be 
no hacking or spinning on a Thursday evening, for 
this is offensive to the dweller in the tree.^ 

Definite worship of trees is still to be found in sur- 
vival, and was distinctly forbidden in decrees of the 
church. It is one of the points of " heathenship," 
as defined in the laws of King Cnut : " Heathenship 
is where one worships idols, that is, where one wor- 
ships heathen gods and sun or moon, fire or flood, 
water-wells or stones, or ani/ sort of tree^^ The 
Anglo-Saxon homilies repeatedly condemn the prac- 
tice of people " who are so foolish " as to bring offer- 

1 Above, p. 351. 

2 D. MA 421. The " family-tree " has with us another meaning, but 
the metaphor is suggestive. See D. MA III. 187. ^ Schmid, p. 272. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 385 

ings to a mere stone, a well, a tree. Wells, stones, 
and trees were holy places ; water-spirits, earth-spirits, 
and tree-spirits had prescribed and traditional rites 
which the church found hard to destroy. In the list 
quoted by Grimm, from Burchard, we find specific 
mention of these practices, — bringing votive offer- 
ings to tree or fount or stone, bringing a candle 
thither, or any such gift, "as if there were a divinity 
(nicmeii) there which could do good or harm." 
Again, bishops and their assistants are to make every 
exertion that "such trees as are consecrated to demons 
and worshipped by the people, to such an extent that 
no one dares to cut off branch or twig, should be 
hewn down and burned." Mention is further made 
of auguries and the casting of lots, which are under- 
taken under the shade of a sacred tree.^ A modern 
instance of offerings made at or to a tree is quoted 
by Mr. Tylor,^ from a Scandinavian authority, who 
says that to this day on outlying Swedish farms is 
observed the sacrificial rite of pouring milk and beer 
over the roots of trees. Tylor collects ample evi- 
dence of similar tree-cult among savage tribes.^ 
Mannhardt has a volume devoted to the Germanic 
phases of the subject. Anglo-Saxon leanings towards 
utility are plain enough, along with traces of absolute 
worship, in the custom of "youling" trees which are 
to bear fruit and so benefit the worshipper directly ; 
the tree is often whipped, or, again, has cider, beer, 
or the like, poured upon its roots. 

The sacred character of trees is shown by their use 
in the naming of places such as LindentUn^ Thorntiln, 

1 D. MA III. 404, 406. 2 p. c. II. 228. 

3 II. 215, 221 ff. See his references. 



386 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

and many similar names.^ Moreover, sacred trees 
were used as boundary marks for an estate, as is 
proved by our old charters and legal documents. A 
given tree, hung with trophies offered to god or 
spirit, would be known long after the heathen abomi- 
nations had been removed ; marks and carvings were 
often allowed to remain upon it. Thus Kemble^ 
thinks that the earnes beam in Kent, mentioned in an 
old document, was probably " a tree marked with the 
figure of an eagle." A full description of heathen 
rites practised at such a tree is quoted by Grimm 
from the life of St. Barbatus (602-683),3 with the 
somewhat damaging remark that " it may be accu- 
rate." The Lombards had been baptized, but still 
held to heathenish customs; and not far from the 
walls of Beneventum, they were in the habit of wor- 
shipping a " sacrilegious " tree, in which was hung 
the hide of a beast. The men rode a race under the 
tree, during which they hurled spears through the 
hide ; and this had to be done backwards, making 
the affair a feat of strength and dexterity. The 
piece of skin thus cut out was eaten as an especial 
part of the rite. Here, moreover, persons were 
wont to fulfil vows, and the whole place was held 
sacred. We are elsewhere distinctly told that the 
Lombards worshipped a " blood-tree " or " sacred 
tree." * 

1 Leo, Eectitud. Singul. Person, p. 14. 

2 Saxons in England, I. 480 (appendix). 

3 D. MA 541. A good sur\ival of tree-worship is the case of the 
Stock am Eisen in Vienna, into whicli every apprentice, before setting 
out on his Wanderjahre, drove a nail for luck. "For luck" is gen- 
erally what is left of the older notion of divine aid. See Fergusson, 
Tree and Serpent Worship, p. 21. •* D. MA 83. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 387 

First of trees in point of sacred character stood the 
oak. We remember, of course, Glasgerion's oath, 
" by oak and ash and thorn," where, in original rites, 
the sacred tree in question was touched by him who 
swore.i The village May-pole must be no more than 
mentioned, and even the great world-tree, Yggdra- 
sill, may be left to controversy with a general feeling 
that between heathendom and Christianity, neither 
one can be claimed for its origin to the exclusion of 
the other ; ^ in any event, we see a support for the 
supreme importance of tree-cult. Whether we be 
justified or not in assuming a Germanic " world-tree," 
there is no doubt of the old Germanic association 
of trees with the source of existence. About the 
guardian-tree Swedish women twine their arms in 
order to insure easy delivery in the pangs of child- 
birth ; ^ and we remember how in our English ballads 
women in like time of need "set their backs against 
an oak." Other trees are noted as affording help in 
like circumstances. Eating the fruit of certain trees 
may make women pregnant ; and when May Margret 
pulls the nuts in Hind Etin's wood, plainly a sacred 
region, and so comes into his power, we may perhaps 
assume a kindred tradition based upon older cult.* 
Indeed, in many a tale, the babies are fetched directly 
from or out of this or that tree ; ^ and we hear of chil- 
dren being drawn through a split sapling in order to 
cure them of a deformity or a disease. It is in close 
connection with the use of trees as a place of offering 
and sacrifice that courts were so often held beneath a 

1 Child, Ballads,2 III. 137 ; Grimm, R. A. 896 f. 

2 Bugge, Studier, pp. 393-529. 3 Ibid. 512. 
4Child,BaUads,2II. 360ff. 

5 Bugge, Studier, 514. Common belief in Frisia and Holland. 



388 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

tree ; ^ justice was originally divine in every sense. 
It is significant that in one of these courts " the oath 
was taken with a stick of holly held in the hand." ^ 
Down to modern times, certain traditional trees are 
held in awe, and the rudest village hind will not 
break or mar them.^ 

Our best account of such a sacred tree in the old 
heathen days is the well-known story of Boniface 
and the " oak of Jove." It is told in Willibald's life 
of the saint.* He had come to the land of the Hes- 
sians, and many of these accepted the laying-on of 
hands ; " but others, whose minds were not yet 
strengthened (nondum animo confortati)^ refused to 
accept the truths of the pure faith ; some, moreover, 
made in secret their offerings and sacrifice, . . . 
others openly ; some publicly, some privately, carried 
on auspices and divinations, magic and incantations ; 
others again auspices and auguries and divers sacri- 
ficial rites ; but others, of saner mind, who had re- 
nounced all heathen worship, did none of these 
things. With help and counsel of these latter, 
[Boniface] undertook, with the servants of God 
standing about him, to cut doAvn an immense oak- 
tree, which was called by its old heathen name, the 
Jupiter Oak Q-ohur Jovis^,^ in a place known as 
Gsesmere.^ When, resolute of mind, he had begun 
to fell the tree, the great crowd of heathen who had 
come up cursed him as an enemy of their gods ; but 

1 iJ. J[. 794 ff. Gomrne, Prim. Folk-Moots, passim. 2 n^id. 145. 

3 See some verses in Gomme's book, p. 257, about Langley Bush in 
Staifordshire. 

4 Geschichtschreiher d. deutschen Vorzeit, " Willibald," p. 27 f. 
s Interpretatio Bomana ; probably Jo^ns = Thor, Thunor. 

6 Geismar on the Edder. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 389 

nevertheless, when he had cut the tree only a little, 
the huge mass of the oak, moved by a divine blast 
from above, fell with shattered top ; and as if by com- 
mand of a higher power, burst asunder into four parts, 
and four equal fragments of huge bulk lay revealed 
without any effort of the brothers who stood round 
about." With the wood of this oak, Boniface built a 
church. 

Spirits of the water are plentiful in Germanic my- 
thology, and had a special cult w^hich survived into 
modern superstition. Plutarch, in his " Caesar," has an 
interesting and valuable passage which not only shows 
us the prophetic functions of the German woman, 
but gives us positive evidence of Germanic religious 
ceremonies in their primitive form. When Csesar sud- 
denly appeared with his soldiers before the army of 
Ariovistus, the barbarian host was in consternation. 
" They were still more discouraged by the prophecies 
of their holy women, who foretell the future by observ- 
ing the eddies of rivers, and taking signs from the wind- 
ings and noise of streams, and who now warned them 
not to engage before the next new moon appeared." ^ 
J. Grimm explains the divination from an eddy or 
whirlpool by the theory that such movements were 
caused by the spirits who dwelt in the water.^ Be- 
sides this official divination, from the murmur and 
windings of the watercourses, there was direct wor- 
ship of the spirits who haunted spring and fountain. 
True, we are told that it was worship at the foun- 
tain, at the stream ; and many modern writers insist 
that these were simply hallowed places meet for the 
worship of the dead. But fountains, like trees, with 

1 Clough's Plutarch, IV. 276 [Boston ed. of 1859] . 2 d, ]^f\ 492. 



390 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

all the mystery of rippling living waters, or the life- 
like murmur of foliage, were very different places 
from the dull stone above a grave ; and much of the 
worship must have been directed to the informing 
and potent spirit of the place, to a personality which 
neither stood out from its haunt as a distinct ances- 
tral soul, nor yet merged entirely in the element ; it 
was an animating presence, holding border-ground be- 
tween individuality and a vaguely felt natural power. 
Water-worship is almost universal, found in every 
place and time, from the river-god of classical lore 
down to the sacred well of the superstitious Euro- 
pean peasant.^ Worship at springs and wells, as we 
have seen, is repeatedly forbidden in the canons ; 
Anglo-Saxon decrees forbid the bringing of candle or 
offering to these once sacred places, and prayers and 
vigils at the fountain are likewise put under ban.^ 
The same holds good of all Germanic races. For the 
Scandinavians we have testimony of Ari. " Thorstan 
Rednebb was a great sacrificer; he worshipped the 
waterfall ... and used to have all the leavings 
taken to the waterfall ; he was a great prophet." ^ So 
Gregory of Tours tells about offerings and sacrifices 
made by the people to a certain lake ; * cheese was 
one of the offerings, and this reminds us of the 
" Cheesewell " of our own traditions, which had its 
name from the same custom. Belief in the curative 
property of certain holy wells is common enough 
down to the present time ; a heathen well of repute 
easily turned Christian with the country, took a saint 
as patron, and went on curing and blessing as before. 

1 Tylor, p. C. II. 213 f . 2 j). M^ 484 ff. 

3 C. P. B. I. 421, quoted from Landn. V. 5. ^ d, mA 496. 



THE WOKSHIP OF NATURE 391 

Tales of such are abundant ; one well in England is 
celebrated by Koger of Hoveden as making the blind 
see, the deaf hear, the dumb talk, and the lame receive 
power of limb. A woman far gone in dropsy went to 
this well by advice of an abbot, drank, and vomited 
two huge black toads, which changed into immense 
dogs of the same color and then into asses. They 
were driven off, and the woman recovered her health.^ 
Strip away the monkish wrappings, and we have the 
virtue of a good old heathen well. The dualism which 
was partly original and partly owing to the discredit 
of heathen worship, shows us another sort of cult in 
this domain ; for evil and malicious spirits haunted 
the water, and worked endless mischief among the 
sons of men. Now magic, a very old affair, could be 
put into operation against these evil powers, or else 
they might be propitiated by a sacrifice of some sort. 
Cases of the latter method we shall presently con- 
sider; the former is illustrated by the custom of 
throwing metallic objects, preferably of iron or steel, 
into the well or the stream, and thus binding or para- 
lyzing the power of the water-spirit. Iron and steel 
were supposed to limit spiritual agencies ; and here, 
says Liebrecht, is the real explanation of our maxim 
that lovers or friends should not make mutual pres- 
ents of knife or scissors or anything of the sort.^ 
Cornish folk, says Tylor, drop pins and nails into 
their holy wells. ^ All manner of curious customs 
were associated with the search for cure or blessing 
at these holy wells, and some are collected by Brand.* 

1 Liebrecht, Otia Imperialia of Gerv. Tilh. p. 103. 

2 Otia Imp. p. 101. 3 p. c. II. 214. 

4 Antiquities, " Customs and Superstitions concerning Wells and 
Fountains.". 



392 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Divination was practised, as where people dropped 
pebbles into the water, or provoked the rising of 
bubbles, and interpreted the signs according to a 
traditional code. More direct was the usage at the 
" wishing-well," where the supplicant threw into the 
water a piece of gold and then made his prayer. 
Fountains were known to foretell plague or famine, 
or, in less sweeping fashion, the approach of a tem- 
pest. Wells were decorated with flowers ; in one 
English village, on a certain day, the clergyman and 
choristers were wont " to pra}^ and sing psalms at the 
wells." 

The notion of " healing springs " is, of course, no 
vulgar superstition. From oldest times the virtues 
of certain waters must have been known ; and with 
our Germanic forefathers the salt-springs had prece- 
dence, and were brought into close connection with 
the cult. The famous passage of Tacitus,^ which 
tells how two Germanic tribes struggled for such a 
dear possession, also informs us that these Germans 
believed the place itself to be of unusual sanctity, 
and thought the salt was produced by the direct and 
gracious intervention of the divinities. When water 
was thrown upon burning logs, the rude method em- 
ployed to make the salt, that precious substance was 
produced by divine agency from these opposing ele- 
ments of fire and water. 

The purifying functions of water bring it into con- 
nection with a great variety of ceremonies. Lustra- 
tion is found in all directions.^ Sacred rivers meet 
us in every land, and every village has its haunted 
brook or spring. The rain itself is holy, and when it 

1 Ann. XIII. 57. 2 Tylor, P. C. II. 429 ff. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 393 

falls into an open grave, it is a sign that the soul of 
the dead is already among the blessed ; ^ it is God's 
benediction. " In olden time," begins the first Helgi- 
Lay, "in olden time when eagles were calling on 
high, and holy streams poured down from the heights 
of heaven. . . ." In stress of drought men sought 
by magic to bring down the rain, and the church con- 
demns those "qui mergunt imagines in aquam pro 
pluvia obtinenda."2 Holy-water itself is a conces- 
sion of the church to the old well and fountain wor- 
ship; but whether, as many have claimed, baptism 
and the use of water in sprinkling and purifying 
were known to heathen custom, is a disputed point. 
Mention is made of them in Old Norse annals ; but 
while Miillenhoff defends their heathen origin, Mau- 
rer thinks they were imitated from the rites of the 
church, and has secured for his theory the emphatic 
approval of Bugge.^ But even if the rite of sprin- 
kling was taken from the church, a custom of dipping 
or otherwise bathing new-born children in running 
water, which prevailed among the ancient Germans, 
was surely more than a mere " bath," and had ritual 
significance. Moreover, when we find this saying of 
Odin's : " If I pour water upon the young thane, he 
falls not, though he go to battle ; he sinks not under 
the sword," ^ even if we admit the influence of bap- 

1 Wolf, Beitrdge, I. 216. 

2 Wolf, Beitr. I. 237. Grimm gives several other ceremonies prac- 
tised by European peasants for the same purpose. D. MA 493 ff. 

3 Konrad Maurer, Ueher die Wasserioeihe d. germ. Ileidenthumes, 
1880; Miillenhoff in the " Anzeiger " of HaupVs Zst., Bd. VII. ; Bugge, 
Studier, 371 ff. A comprehensive review of the general subject is Pfan- 
nenschmid, Das Weihioasser im heidnischen u. christlichen Cultus, 
Hanover, 1869. * Bugge, p. 376 f . 



394 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

tismal rites, we must suppose something in the old 
heathen ceremonial to which this act bore some re- 
semblance. Running water seems to have had spe- 
cial virtue. We may work backwards from Tarn o' 
Shanter and his Meg to the leechdoms of Anglo- 
Saxon folk-lore, surely full of heathen reminiscence, 
where we find as cure for erysipelas on man or horse, 
a charm, to be sung over the man's head or in the 
horse's left ear, in running water, and with the head 
against the stream.^ In Norway and Sweden, land 
of cataracts, the virtues of running water would nat- 
urally find ample recognition. The spirit who haunts 
the waterfall is helpful or harmful, and can be cajoled 
into imparting valuable knowledge, or else must be 
propitiated by sacrifice to avert the consequences of 
his ill-favor. He has power to teach men music and 
magic, and Henrik Ibsen's poem, SpiUemcend, will 
occur to lovers of modern Scandinavian literature. 
We have already heard from Ari of a man who was 
careful to sacrifice to the cataract. This was for 
general prosperity ; but particularly the art of music 
is best learned from such a master. To learn to play 
the harp, says Swedish folk-lore, offer a black lamb 
to the spirit of the waterfall ; while in Norway, the 
Fossegrim teaches one to play the fiddle. He grasps 
the learner's right hand and sways it about so long 
that blood starts from every finger-tip ; after that, 
one can play so that the very trees will dance. Finer 
yet is the touch of blended old and new belief in the 
folk's tradition that Nix would gladly purchase im- 

1 Cockayne, III. 70. For "wens at the heart" there is a similar 
charm, III. 75. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 395 

mortality and salvation by thus teaching the Christian 
how to play the violin.^ 

Loveliest of all water-spirits, and brought into 
manifold touch with old and later cult, are the swan- 
maidens. One of the finest passages of the Nibelun- 
gen Lay is where Hagen surprises these wise women 
of the flood, and forces them to uncover the secrets 
of the future. Here it is not the mortal watching 
from the bank who foretells things to come as he 
watches the ripples of the stream ; it is the creatures 
of the flood itself. 

Both up and down the river he sought the ferryman ; ^ 
He heard the plash of water : to listen he began. 
'Twas wise-women who caused it ; all in a fountain fair 
They made them fain to dally and cool and bathe them there. 

When Hagen had espied them, he stole in silence near, 
And when they marked his coming, right mickle was their fear : 
That they outran, escaped him, them seemed a mighty joy. 
The hero took their garments, nor made them more annoy. 

Spake one of the mere-women, — Hadburg was her name, — 
" Here will we tell you, Hagen, O noble knight of fame. 
If you now, gallant swordsman, our raiment but restore, 
Your journey into Hunland, and all that waits you more." 

Like birds they sioept and hovered before him on the floods 
Wherefore hira seemed their wisdom must mickle he and good. . . . 

She said : " To Etzel's kingdom ye do right well to fare ; 
Be witness my assurance of all I now declare : 
To no realm ever heroes have better ta'en their way, 
To such a noble welcome ! — Believe me what I say." 

1 D. MA 408 ; Matthew Arnold's poem Neckan. Deadly water-sph-its 
are plentiful, but the catalogue belongs to mythology. The Nicor is 
Anglo-Saxon ancestor of " Nick." 

2 To convey the Burgundians over the river. 



396 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Her words were good to Hagen and made his spirit glad. 
He gave them back their raiment. No sooner were they clad 
In all their magic garments, they made him understand 
In truth the fate that waited his ride to Etzel's land. 

It was the second mere-wife, Sigelind, who spake : 

" O son of Aldriane, Hagen, my warning take ! 

'Twas yearning for the raiment my sister's falsehood made ; 

And if thou goest to Hunland, Lord Hagen, thou'rt betrayed ! " 



Hereupon they tell him the true fate of the expedi- 
tion. An army of similar water-spirits with prophetic 
powers could be marshalled from oldest times down 
to Scott's " White Lady " in the Monastery. 

Whatever may be said of these mild types of 
water-cult, there is no doubt in regard to the worship 
of spirits which rule over flood and tempest. Our 
own ancestors who dwelt by the North Sea, and their 
neighbors the Danes, knew this cult. Sometimes the 
evil spirit was propitiated with a sacrifice ; sometimes 
a god of light and cheer was appealed to and made 
to conquer the demon. Such is the fate of Grendel 
in our BSoivulf; and it is significant that an English 
local name, G-rendlesmere, has preserved a distinct 
piece of testimony to the spirit and his cult.^ Folk- 
lore tells many a tale to illustrate the other method. 
A legend of the Danish coast runs as follows : ^ On 
the west coast of Jylland it is said that the sea will 
have his yearly- sacrifice in return for not breaking in 
upon the country ; and that therefore in the old times 
people had a custom of exposing every year a little 
child in a barrel, since otherwise, oftener than not, 

1 K. L. 1473 ff. 

2 Document of ^thelstan's time (931) in Cod. Dip. II. 72. 

3 Thiele, Banmarks Folkesagn, II. 3. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 397 

there followed great ruin and destruction/^ A milder 
rite was the yearly bath of the women of Cologne on 
the eve of St. John, by which they sought to avoid 
evil and bad luck for the coming year ; it seems to 
have been a real Rhine-cult, and aroused great interest 
in the poet Petrarch, who saw it in the year 1330 and 
described it in a letter to a friend.^ Finally, we come 
to the victim seized by the nix, or anticipated by 
sacrifice of some beast; folk-lore is full of these 
tragedies, and the legends about the water-spirits fill 
volumes. Nix is mostly cruel and vindictive. Often 
he appears as a black horse or a bull, climbing from 
stream or lake to carry off his victim; what is no 
longer given he must take. Here, too, belong the 
rites at the opening of a bridge, — a live cock built 
into the wall in lieu of the victim, and so shading 
back into human sacrifice. The bather seized by 
cramp or caught in an eddy of the stream, believes 
that he is pulled down by a demon of the flood. 
To-day we have a dozen superstitions about bather's 
cramp ; one wears an amulet, or even goes through 
some absurd performance to ward off the danger.^ 

Dwarfs have been mentioned ; we must not forget 
the giants. While these are mostly represented as 
foes of man and hated by the gods, the nimble and 
keen-witted divinities of a new order of things, while 
they are held up to ridicule as a heavy race, dull as 
the stones of their native mountains, none the less 
we may discover probable traces ^ of a cult directed 
to these same stupidities. Offerings to giants occur 

1 See also " Odense Aamand's Offer," II. 17. "^D. MA 489. 

3 Details in Tylor, P. C. II. 209 ff. 

4 "Kaum Spuren," says, however, J. Grimm, D. MA 4G1. 



398 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

in legend and superstition. Like Milton's "lubbar 
fiend," such a being will plough and thresh and do 
other services for men, in order " to earn his cream- 
bowl duly set." In the Kormakssaga occurs the 
word hlotrisi^ " giant to whom one makes sacrifice " ; 
but Vigfusson in his Dictionary defines it "an en- 
chanted champion," with a mark of doubt. Stones 
smeared with butter may have been, as Grimm re- 
marks, a compliment to the giants. Worship at 
the huge stone tombs, believed to be the sepulchres 
of a giant race, must have been in a manner worship 
of the giant-spirits which haunted the place. The 
old homilies explain the heathen gods as "giants," 
and "men who were very mighty."^ Certain gods 
are called directly giants, — " Mercury the giant." 

Such ceremonies as we have hitherto described 
were of an intimate and personal character, and 
limited to a narrow round of domestic life ; but we 
must now broaden our view, and, first of all, in 
addition to the cult of spirits who dwelt in the dif- 
ferent elements, and at bidding would take human 
form and appear to the mortal who knew the way to 
summon them, we must admit a direct worship of 
the elements themselves. It was a vague personality 
which seemed in the storm-wind to prostrate the 
giant oak and hew a path through the forest, but it 
was a personality none the less. Human power could 
never compass such destruction, and the ancestral 
spirits were out of the question ; with the evidence of 
earliest language, and a careful study of modern 
savage reasoning, we come to the assurance that our 
remote forefathers must have worshipped from the 

1 Kemble, Salomon and Sattmi, p. 120 ff. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 399 

outset the animated forces of nature. These were 
spoken of as persons, and in most cases were regular 
divinities, — a heaven-god, a thunder-god, a wind-god. 
Before, however, we approach the cult of these 
deities, we must trace the more direct worship of the 
elements. 

Csesar says ^ of the Germans that they have no gods 
save those whom their perceptions reveal to them and 
by whose agency they have material profit, such as 
Sun, Moon, and Fire : " Solem et Vulcanum et Lu- 
nam." Csesar was undoubtedly wrong ^ in his limi- 
tation ; but his positive testimony is of value. He 
shows a tendency of the Germans to worship deities 
which were intimately connected with powers of 
nature, as well as the Germanic veneration for these 
powers in and for themselves. Let us take for the 
first an element which Csesar does not name, — water. 
We have already seen how fain our ancestors were 
to worship at wells and springs, and how wide was 
the power of healing which they attributed to the 
agency of any sacred fountain. But the element 
itself was held in highest veneration, and this is par- 
ticularly manifest in the old leechdoms. " Let the 
woman," runs an Anglo-Saxon specimen,^ " who can- 
not bring forth [or feed, nourish?] her child, take in 
her hand milk from a cow of one color, and then sup 
it with her mouth, and then go to running water and 
dip up with the same hand a mouthful of the water 
and swallow it : then let her speak these words. . . ." 
How to get the water is more important than its 
source : — at midnight or before dawn, in absolute 

1 B. G. VI. 21. 2 2). M. 85. 

3 Wulker-Grein, Bihl. I. 327 ; Cockayne, III. 69. 



400 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

silence, with one's hand scooping up the water against 
or with the stream and turning towards the east, tak- 
ing the water from three separate brooks, and what 
not.i Celtic water-worship was pronounced; in a 
certain well a broken sword is made whole, and "the 
spring that turneth wood to stone," mentioned by the 
king to Laertes in Hamlet^ had doubtless something 
more than chemical traditions. ^ 

Fire in many ways resembles water ; ^ it is full of 
motion, capricious, serviceable, destructive. Tylor 
divides fire-cult into two varieties, — worship of the 
actual flame before the devotee, and worship of any 
fire as manifestation of the fire-god.* While the 
orient is the peculiar home of this cult, we find ample 
evidence of it among the races of Europe ; Slavonic 
tribes are perhaps most prominent. The fire upon 
the hearth is of course the centre of all domestic 
ceremony of the sort ; brides on entering their new 
home were once led about the hearth, then central 
in the hall ; and nowadays an Esthonian bride throws 
money into the flames, or else a live offering, such 
as a chicken.^ A devouring and greedy monster, 
fire is appeased by such gifts and does not fall upon 
house or barn. Worship of fire is forbidden in the 
Anglo-Saxon laws and decrees. Cnut's definition of 
heathendom included the cult of " sun and moon, fire 
and flood-water," but Grimm can find little else to 
testify to a regular cult of fire among the Germans. 
Probably it was a prevailing sentiment rather than 
a special cult. There is a certain gratitude for the 

1 Leechdoms, passim. ^ D. M. 487. 

3 Etymology helps us with our English hum and German Bronnen. 

4 P. C. II. 277 ff . 5 Ibid. II. 285 ; B. M. 501. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 401 

benefits of fire, natural to inhabitants of a cold coun- 
try, as where the Edda, in different mood from Pin- 
dar's, s^i^s that fire is the best thing for mortals ; ^ 
while in the cosmogony of the Scandinavian myths 
the same element plays a great part in the bringing 
forth of life. The assumption that primitive Ger- 
manic faith looked forward to a great fire which 
should end the world, — that from Muspellsheim came 
the creative warmth, and thence also shall come the 
element of universal destruction, — is not now held by 
all mythologists. It is disputed by Bugge,^ who refers 
to Christian influences this whole notion of the end of 
the world ; and he is joined by other authorities.^ 

The survivals mostly show us fire as object of wor- 
ship on account of its purifying and healing proper- 
ties, — a desperate but potent cure. In the Mark of 
Brandenburg we find traces of what was doubtless, 
in old times, a far more terrible rite. Until lately, 
peasants of that neighborhood were wont to meet 
sickness in swine by driving them through a fire, 
made under the most careful conditions, by the fric- 
tion of a rope, or similar device. In other places, and 
under the same circumstances, a similar sacred fire is 
prepared ; all other fires in the village being mean- 
while extinguished, and swine, cattle, poultry even, 
are driven through the healing flame.* We could 
collect a number of similar survivals in which fire 
plays this purifying and healing part.^ It is sig^ 

1 Z>. iW. 500. 2 Studier, p. 419 f. 

3 Meyer, Voluspa, p. 182, says that this Norse and sporadically Ger- 
man doctrine of the world's end " has not been proved to be primitive 
German belief." ^D. M. 503 f. 

s The smoke of these fires is beneficent. If it passed over and 
through the branches of fruit trees, it ensured a heavy crop. 



402 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

.nificant — one thinks of the Roman custom — that in 
many of these village rites only persons of a pure 
life are allowed to take a leading part ; and the 
favorite fashion of kindling the so-called neid-fire^^ 
by the rubbing of sticks, could be matched by similar 
restrictions in rites of other races. A double sanctity 
must have informed the ceremony when the *'neid- 
fire " was used to heat water, which one proceeded to 
sprinkle over cattle afflicted with the murrain.^ Fire 
played a great part in the midsummer festivals of the 
heathen ; and held through later times, as at Easter, 
or at St. John's day, when great fires were lighted 
on the mountains and hilltops, and the whole coun- 
try-side seemed to be ablaze. Around these fires 
the people danced and sported, jumped over and 
through the flames, and thus kept up in traditional 
forms of merry-making the old severities of their 
forefathers' cult. A rude sort of divination was 
practised with this aid. Wheels bound with straw, 
and so set on fire, were rolled down the hillside, into 
the river below ; if the fire held till it touched the 
water, a good ^dntage was foretold that year.^ Else- 
where the wheel takes away all ill-luck from the 
people of the village.^ We hear of all manner of 
fires at this season ; " made of bones," one sort, — the 
modern bon-fire, according to a half-parlous etymol- 
ogy ; ^ fire of " clean wood " ; fii^e of wood and bones 

1 This form is Scotch. The German form is much older. It is men- 
tioned in 742, and forbidden as a heathen rite, — " illos sacrileges 
ignes." The Indiculus speaks, "de igne fricato de ligno, id est, nod- 
fyr." D. M. 502. See Mannhardt, Baumk. p. 518 ff. 

2 D. M. 507. 3 Ibid. 514 if. 

4 Brand, Antiquities, ** Summer Solstice." 

5 Skeat, Diet., and Brand as quoted above. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 403 

mixed. Mention is made in an obscure poem quoted, 
by Brand, but charged with classical allusions, of the 
habit of ''^casting mylk to the Bonefyre." Farmers 
were wont to go around their cornfields with burn- 
ing torches ; ^ and in every way a superfluity of heat 
and light seems to have been in order. At the 
opposite season of the year, the winter solstice, we 
find fire in the same popularity, — witness the Yule 
Log and its train of ceremonies. It is hard, however, 
in this case to disentangle the ceremonial from the 
practical uses of fire. Michaelmas, too, had its fires ; 
then, as in midsummer, blazed the torch, and the 
straw-covered wheel rolled down the hillside with a 
crowd of torch-bearers rushing after it; by the brook, 
the goal of the wild chase, peasant-girls waited for 
the runners, and gave them cakes and wine, as pro- 
logue to the dance. Many of these rites survived, 
even into our century, and are beyond all reasonable 
doubt relics of heathen ceremony .^ A little later 
than Michaelmas, on St. Martin's day, fires blazed in 
even more persistent fashion; torches were borne 
about, fields and orchards were visited, and in many 
places, baskets of grain or fruit were cast directly 
into the flames, — an evident sacrifice.^ 

In short, not to multiply examples of this sort, 
still less, to lose ourselves in speculations about 
symbols, it is evident that fire survives in all these 
ceremonies partly as a once universal means of wor- 
ship offered to various powers, and partly as an ele- 

1 In one German village the burning wheel of St. John's eve is called 
the "Hail- Wheel," and Pfannenschmid {Erntefeste, pp. 67, 384; Mann- 
hardt, Bmtmk. p. 500) concludes that the rite was meant to defend 
crops from the ravages of hail. 

2 Pfannenschmid, Erntefeste, pp. 117, 491. s ibid. 210 ff . 



404 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

ment which found its own cult among people who 
wished its beneficence and feared its dangers, — 
recognizing it doubtless as the most important factor 
ever added to the progress of civilization. But even 
in fire-worship we cannot fail to find the trace of 
manes-cult. The soul was fancied as flame, and about 
the dead man's barrow hovered an uncanny fire. As 
usual, the popular belief is perverted into superstition 
of wiser ages, and only the evil and grosser souls 
suffer this fiery imprisonment. Such are the dismal 
lights of the churchyard. 

Direct cult of the wind is not illogical; for the 
storm has its terrors to be averted, and milder breezes 
bring clouds and fertilizing rain. Feeding the wind 
is a rite which we have already noticed; Tylor 
quotes a charm from New Zealand, where, however, 
the element seems to be personified.^ The air, like 
water and fire, is a purifying agent ; but it is hard 
to tell what logic of ceremony survives in the odd 
notion of a Danish huntsman that to obtain charmed 
bullets and sure aim (frit skud) he must let the 
wind of a Thursday morning blow into his gun- 
barrel. Thiele says it means a pact with the Wild 
Huntsman, who is ruler of the air.^ Superstition has 
much to say about witches who can raise the wind, 
cause storms, and the like. This is black magic ; but 
more legitimate are the ceremonies, once part of a 
cult, now mostly broken and silly remnants, which 
avert the harmful agency of storm and flood and 
hail. These ceremonies were either public or pri- 
vate, and, judging by the survivals,^ of the most 

1 P. C. II. 378. 2 Thiele, Danmarks Folkesagn, II. 112. 

3 A list of these, too long to quote, in Pfannenschmid, Erntefeste, 
p. 373 f . 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 405 

varied character. Direct testimony of our heathen 
ancestors' doings in this particular cult is given by 
a decree of Charlemagne against the custom of "bap- 
tizing " bells to act as prevention of the hail, or of 
writing upon cards and attaching the latter to poles 
set up in the fields. The " runes " were undoubtedly 
forbidden because of their heathenish nature ; for we 
read of a case where a bishop took a piece of wax 
from the grave of a saint, fastened it to one of the 
highest trees, and so drove away the hailstorms that 
had before laid waste his fields.^ 

As to the earth, the " mother " of so many myths, 
we shall have difficulty in separating any direct cult 
from the worship of an earth-goddess. A long 
charm of Anglo-Saxon origin ^ contains amid a mass 
of clerical superstition a few fragments of older 
heathenism. It runs as follows : " Here is the 
remedy how thou canst remedy thy fields if they 
will not bear well, or if any improper thing is done 
thereupon in the way of magic, or of bewitching by 
drugs. Take thou by night, before daybreak, four 
pieces of turf on the four sides of the land, and note 
how they previously stood. Take then oil and 
honey and barm and milk of all cattle that may be 
on the land, and part of every kind of tree that may 
grow on the land except hard trees,^ and part of 
every known herb except burdock* alone, and put 
holy water thereon, and drop thrice on the place of 

1 References in Pfann. Erntef. p. 57 if . 

2 MS. Cott. Calig. A. of the British Museum. Printed in Grein- 
Wulker, BiU. I. 312 ff. ; D. MA 1033; Rieger, Lesebuch, p. 143 f. ; Cock- 
ayne's Leechdoms, I. 398 ff. Cf. also Wiilker, Grdr. d. ags. Lit. 
p. 347 ff. 

3 Oak and beech. Grimm, D. M. 1035 ; B. A. 506. 

4 Cockayne says " buckbean " with ( ?) . 



406 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the pieces of turf, and say then these words : ' Cres- 
cite^ wax, et multiplicamini, and multiply, et replete, 
and fill, terram, this earth. In nomine patris et filii 
et spiritus sancti sint^ henedicti,^ And Pater JVoster 
as often as the other. And then take the turves to 
church, and let the mass-priest sing four masses 
over the turves and let the green part be turned 
towards the altar, and afterwards, before sunset, take 
back the turves thither where they were. And have 
wrought of live tree four signs ^ of Christ and write, 
on each end, Matthew and Mark, Luke and John. 
Lay the sign of Christ on the bottom of the pit and 
then say : Crux Mattheus, crux Jfarcus, crux Lucas, 
crux sanctus Johannes. Take then the turves and 
set them there above, and say then nine times these 
words : Crescite and as often Pater Noster, and turn 
thee then eastward, and bow nine times humbly and 
say these words : — 

" Eastward I stand, I ask for my welfare, 
ask I tlie Mighty Lord, ask I the Mickle God, 
ask I the holy Heavenly Warder, — 
Earth I ask and Up-Heaven ^ 
and the sooth Sancta Maria 
and heaven's might and high palace,* 
that I this charm by the Chieftain's ^ gift, 
may open with ^ teeth in earnest mind, 
waken these fruits for om- worldly use, 
till these fields with firm belief, 
make splendid this turf, — as spake the prophet, 
that he speeds on earth who alms divideth, 
well and willingly by will of God. 

1 Sitis? Wiilker. 2 Crosses. 3 Cf. O. H. G. ufhimil. 

4 iJeced = house, but in Epinal Gloss (Sweet's 0. E. Texts, p. 83), 
rajcedh'c = palatina, " palatial." ^ Drythten, "leader "= God. 

6 Or " from " ; as much as " speak," like the Homeric figure. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 407 

" Turn thee then thrice, with the course of the sun, 
stretch thee then at full length, and say these 
litanies, and then say Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus^ to 
the end. Sing then Benedicite with outstretched 
arms, and Magnificat and Pater Noster thrice, and 
commit it to the praise and glory of Christ and 
Sancta Maria, and the Holy Rood and the profit of 
him who owns thy land and all those that are placed 
under him. When all this is done, then let un- 
known seed be taken from beggars, and let there be 
given to these twice as much as one takes from them, 
and gather together all the ploughing utensils ; then 
bore in the plowtree and [place in the hole] incense 
and fennel and hallowed soap and hallowed salt. 
Take then the seed, set it in the body of the plow, and 

say: — 

" Erce, Erce, Erce, earth's mother,^ 
grant thee the Almighty, Master Eternal, 
acres waxing and waving in bloom, 
big with increase, brave to see, 
store of stalks, standing corn,^ 
broad-leaved barley's bountiful fruit, 
eke the white of the wheat in plenty, 
and likewise all the earth's abundance. 
Grant to him, God eternal, 
and his holy saints which in heaven be, 
that his earth be defended from every foe, 
be safe from every ill and drug 
thrown by magic athwart the land ! 
Now bid I the Wielder, this world who made, 
no woman so word-strong,^ no man be so mighty, 
to turn away these words here said ! 

1 Cockayne makes eor\)an a locative. 

2 A desperate translation of a difficult line. Readings differ, and 
the text is corrupt. 

3 We notice throughout the charm that chief fear is of women and 
also chief hope of aid from women, — " mother of earth," or "mother 
earth," as the case may be,. 



408 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

" Then drive the plow and make the first furrow. 
Say then : — 

" Hail to thee, Earth, all men's mother, 
be thou growmg in God's protection, 
filled with food for feeding of men ! 

" Take then meal of every kind and bake a loaf, ' as 
big as will lie within his two hands,' ^ and knead it 
with milk and with holy-water, and lay it under the 
first furrow. Say then : — 

" Full field of food for folk of men, 
brightly blooming, blessed be thou, 
in the name of the holy one, heaven's maker, 
and earth's also, whereon we live ; 
God, world-maker, grant growing gifts, 
that all our corn may come to our use ! 

Say then thrice Crescite in nomine patris^ sint bene- 
dicti. Amen and Pater JVoster thrice." ^ 

The value of this charm is evident; for all the 
expenditure of clerical forms of benediction, there is 
plenty of the old heathen rite left in full view. Who 
"Erce" may be is question for the mythologists ; ^ 
but her title as " mother of earth " (or mother earth?) 
gives us sufficient standing-ground in the matter of 
cult.* As Grimm remarks, earth itself was "holy," 
and by simple logic any familiar spot of earth had its 
sacred character. Whoso abode long time away from 
his land, kissed the earth by way of greeting on his 
return; while Brutus, in the legend, took the wider 

1 Cockayne. 2 por a few kindred rites, see Grimm, D. 31. 1035 f. 
3 For which consult the passages noted by Wiilker in his Grundriss, 
p. 349. 4 Myths exist in plenty. See Tylor, P. C. I. 326 f . 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 409 

view of his relation. ^ To die was, according to Scan- 
dinavian phrase, "falling to mother earth." Turf cut 
with its grass fresh upon it plays an important part 
in the charm just given; and it is perhaps not too fan- 
ciful to see in the ceremony of entering upon blood- 
brotherhood,^ an assumption of common maternity on 
the part of the earth in which the two streams of 
blood flow together. Creeping under the raised sod 
was also part of various rites ; ^ and oaths were made, 
as by holy trees, so also by turf and grass. 

Partly in honor of the gods and goddesses of fer- 
tility, partly in honor of the sacred earth herself, were 
the manifold processions and ceremonies in field and 
garden. In the tenth century we find a German 
abbess establishing certain ceremonies which are to 
take the place of the former "heathen processions 
about the fields." * This was at Whitsuntide ; there 
was to be watching through the night, a solemn pro- 
cession at morning, and relics were to be borne about 
the fields. From these substitutions we can in some 
measure divine the heathen rites. Offerings and feast 
were in a manner continued, and survive to this day 
in some parts of Germany as a general feeding of the 
poor of the parish, often in the churchyard itself. In 
other places we hear of games and sport, which are 
forbidden by the synods;^ but in countless villages of 
the Continent, as well as in England, the chief ele- 
ments of these solemn processions have been retained. 

1 Z). ilf. 534 f. 2 Above, p. 173. 

^ R. A. 118 f . Other symbolic uses of turf are given in the same 
place. 

4 In 936. See Pfannenschmid, Erntefeste, p. 50 ff., 84 ff. Much 
material is, of course, collected by Mannhardt, Feldkulte. 

5 Ibid. 53. 



410 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

In the classical cosmogonies, Tellus must have 
her Uranus, and a heaven-god is familiar enough in 
mythology ; but the cult ^ of overarching sky seems 
to have left few traces in our popular customs. The 
conception is too indefinite ; but no such vagueness 
has hindered the worship of sun, moon, and stars. 
For the cult and adoration of sun and moon by 
heathen Germany, Caesar gives explicit evidence; 
and from many other writers, as well as plentiful sur- 
vival, we know what extraordinary efforts were made 
to help one of these heavenly bodies when it came 
into eclipse. The notion was common to Roman and 
barbarian. " Vince Luna ! " was the cry, and all man- 
ner of noise was made to drive away the monster who 
was thought to be on the point of devouring its vic- 
tim.2 The heading of the twenty-first chapter of the 
Indiculus^ to which we have so often alluded and 
whose loss as a whole is to be so heartily deplored, 
runs: "De lunae defectione, quod dicunt Vinceluna.^'* 
The cult of clamor and terror lasted in distorted fash- 
ions into the seventeenth century, where cases are on 
record for England as well as Germany.^ 

Direct worship of sun and moon is found among 
barbarous tribes of the present day, and to a candid 
judgment must seem to have been one of the most 
certain and clearly primitive inferences of the human 
mind. As J. Grimm hints,* people with any begin- 
nings of agriculture, and especially those living in 
cold or temperate climates, would have a definite cult 

1 Myths, however, seem plentiful. See Tylor, P. C. I. 322 ff. 

2 The well-known classical reference is Juvenal, VI. 442. See also 
Tacitus, Ann. I. 28. 

3 Tylor, P. C. I. 333 f. 4 q, d. SA 51. 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 411 

of the sun. The universal doctrine that sunrise is 
fatal to evil spirits of every sort,^ is itself ample evi- 
dence of this cult. Tylor has plentiful material for 
the ceremonies of savage tribes.^ Corresponding to 
his account of the Samoyed woman who bowed morn- 
ing and evening to the sun, we have the interesting 
fact that in the Upper Palatinate people doff the hat 
at sunrise.^ The same thing is done in honor of the 
moon ; while the peasant of that region is fain to ask 
the sun to come and take away the " seventy-seven 
fevers " with which he is afflicted. So, in Lucian's 
time, the peasant kissed his hand "as an act of wor- 
ship to the rising sun."* In a note to his Volkslieder^^ 
Uhland gives some verses which show in quaint con- 
fusion a mingling of Christian and heathen ideas, 
with definite survival of element-worship : — 

God bless thee, moon and sun, 
And likewise leaf and grass. . . . 

When he came to the hilltop, 
He looked wide aromid : 
" God bless thee, sun and moon, 
And all my loving friends ! " 

Naturally, many of the festal fires which we have 
noticed, perhaps those of Eastertide, belong to the 
cult of the sun. Tylor reminds us that Aurelian in- 
stituted about the time of our Christmas a pagan 
festival for " the birthday of the unconquered sun." ^ 

1 In Norse tradition if a troll or giant is smitten by a ray of the 
rising sun, he is turned to stone. See Alvismdl, 35, 

2 P. C. II. 287 ff. 3 Wuttke, Aberglaub. p. 12. 
4 Tylor, P. C. II. 296. 5 KL Schr. IV. 148. 

6 P. C. II. 297. A minor survival of sim-cult is found in the custom 
of orientation. See Tylor, P. C. II. 296, 421 ff. 



412 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

As to the midsummer festival, which occurs at the 
summer solstice and was called by the Germans 
^' sonnetvende,'^ we may safely connect the fires and 
wheels with some phase of sun-cult. The further 
north we go, the more obvious this relation ; and we 
are told how after their long night the inhabitants of 
" Thule " climbed the peaks to catch the first glimpse 
of the sun, and then fell to celebrating their most 
sacred festival.^ 

Cult of the moon is familiar in magic and witch- 
craft. Potent is the time of eclipse, and our Shaks- 
perian almanac advises us that then is the season to 
get in our slips of yew; leave root of hemlock for 
a moonless night. Manifold superstitions about the 
moon go back to heathen rites, and against some of 
these the church made successful front. *' No Chris- 
tian man," says Beda in one of his treatises,^ "shall 
do anything of witchery by the moon." This is the 
rationalism of the new order ; but presently inherited 
superstition peeps through, for he tells us he has no 
doubt whatever that trees which be hewn at full 
moon are harder against worm-eating and longer last- 
ing than they which are hewn at the new moon.^ 
Indeed, the moon is more important in superstition 
than the sun ; it waxes and wanes, and in its setting 
of night offers the desirable elements of mystery. It 
is the most ancient timepiece, and we have seen that 

1 D. M. 601. 

2 De Temporihus, Anglo-Saxon trans, said to be by ^Ifric, Cock- 
ayne, Leechdoms, III. 232 ff. 

3 Ibid. 266, 268. A later superstition demanded that trees should be 
hewn down in the wane of the moon. D. M. 596. Cockayne gives a 
leechdom which is to be taken " when the moon is on the wane." 
Leechdoms I. 98, 100 (for loss of appetite and for lunacy). 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 413 

Germanic popular government appointed its assem- 
blies at the full moon,^ and waited with awe upon 
the omens of its change .^ Peace, of course, to the 
countless superstitions; but we may note that the 
Esthonian greets a new moon with the words : " Hail, 
moon ! Mayst thou grow old, and may I grow young ! " ^ 
It is an interesting parallel when Congo folk say: "So 
may I renew my life as thou art renewed! "* 

The stars are too numerous and too distant for 
much worship ; superstitions like that of the peasant 
who says a prayer when he spies a falling star, may 
have some precedent in ceremonial worship, and so 
may the advice to any wife, that if she wishes the 
hawks to keep away from her chickens, she must 
" greet the stars " when she goes to bed.^ 

Prayers to day and night — palpable conceptions, 
however indefinite and vast — are recorded in Ger- 
manic tradition, although it is myth rather than cult 
which has claimed these provinces. Day is sacred, 
holy ; oaths are made by it ; ^ and the same is true of 
night. In the Edda they are both invoked : — 

Hail, O Day! 

Hail, Day's sons ! 
Hail, Night and Sister ! 
With gracious eyes gaze on us, 
Give us victory ! ^ 

A later bit from the German, — 

God greet thee, holy Sunday ; 
I see thee ride this way ! 

1 Tac. Germ. II. 2 Caesar and Plutarch, as quoted above. 

3 D. M. 595, note. 4 p. c. II. 300. 

^D.M. III. ; Aherglauhe, 595, 112. 
6 D. M. 614 f. 7 Sigrdr. 3. 



414 GERMANIC ORIGmS 

is a personification, and seems perilously near a mere 
poetic figure, though quoted from a form of blessing ; ^ 
indeed, it is but ill-paying trouble to collect these 
doubtful relics. The worship of day is not a very 
evident inference ; rather some more concrete, com- 
pact and direct object would have been chosen, — 
like the sun. 

In the same way we find traces of season-cult, 
especially of spring and summer. The chief trace of 
this cult, faint enough, is the personification of the 
season in question, on which we must be careful not 
to lay overmuch stress. That " May stands at the 
door" is evidence of poetry and myth; so is Shak- 
spere's jubilant tribute, 

— jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops ; 

or, in soberer vein, — 

The morn, in russet mantle clad, 

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.^ 

This personification is common with the seasons, as 
in the old English lays to spring : — 

Sumer is icumen in, — 

or the less famous, — 

Lenten is come with loue to toune.^ 

1 D. M. 615. 

2 Another pendant is Milton's exquisite picture : — 

Gray -hooded Even, 
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed. 

3 Printed in Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English, II. 48. 
It dates from the thirteenth century. The same phrase is used in the 
Menologium or Anglo-Saxon Calendar, where heathen forms occur 
throughout ; e.g. ]pxs )>e lencten on tun geliden hsefde, werum to wicum. 
"Since spring ('Lent') had come to town, to the dwellings of men." 



THE WORSHIP OF NATURE 415 

This phrase, that spring or any one of the months, 
is " come to town " that is, " come to the country," 
occurs constantly in our old literature ; and it is 
matched by an expression in Beoivulf^ where "year " 
is used for " spring " : — 

. . . Winter locked floods 

in icy fetters, till fared another 

year to the house. . . . ^ 

On the other hand, the approach of winter is expressed 
with great power in an often-quoted Frisian law : " Si 
ilia tenebrosa nebula et frigidissima hiems in hortos et 
in sepes deseendit^ ^ Winter — a cruel warrior, giant, 
or monster ; summer or spring — a jocund youth : 
between these must be strife, and here indeed we find 
some rites which are doubly interesting since they 
point backward to Germanic worship and forward to 
Germanic drama.^ A ballad printed by Uhland* gives 
the dialogue of such a contest as peasants would per- 
form it, each figure clad in the proper symbolic cos- 
tume ; while J. Grimm collects a number of parallel 
survivals. A heading of the Indiculus ^ may refer to 
this as a heathen custom which the church abolished 
as worship and tolerated as amusement. The strife 
of winter and summer was presented in old England, 
and the merriment of May Day, with its pole and 
boughs and dancings, seems to have some connection 
with the old cult of summer and spring.^ 

"Town," as in the case of Chaucer's "persone of a town," is not our 
word, but a parish, a district, as it is still used in New England for 
"township." 

1 Beoio. 1134. The alliteration is probably old, " gear in geardas." 

2 See D. M. 635. 3 ibid. 654. 
4 Volkslieder, I. 23. See also the notes. ^ Cap. 27. 

^ D. M. 649. Grimm sums up the four fashions of celebrating this 
festival which still survive in Europe. See also 657. 



416 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE WORSHIP OF GODS 

Germanic gods and goddesses — Evidence of their cult — The 
days of the week — Woden — Thunor — Tins — Nerthus, and the 
Ingaevonic group — Other deities. 

The rise and progress of a Germanic family, from 
mere communal life in the bounds of a narrow canton 
to the power of a dynasty and the range of a king- 
dom, were accompanied, we may well believe, by a 
corresponding development of the ancestral spirits. 
Where once the shade of the dead man walked pro- 
tecting and helpful about the limits of his old home, 
there must now rule a gigantic spirit, fettered to no 
single habitation, but throned high in air or dwelling 
in remote and inaccessible places. Meanwhile the 
ancestral idea became blurred ; the god was vaguely 
known as progenitor of the race. 

Parallel with this process ran a sharpening and 
clarifying of the notions about natural forces. Curi- 
osity, advancing further upon the outer world, reduced 
its conclusions to a system and made far more dis- 
tinct the personality which had been so vague to the 
earlier inquirer. Definite biographies, one may say, 
were published about the elemental gods, and formed 
along with heroic legend the staple of primitive 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 417 

poetry. What adjustments were made between 
ancestral and elemental worship it is difficult to say, 
though it is clear that the latter would be more 
public, the former more of a household and peculiar 
duty. We must content ourselves with an outline 
of the worship paid in late heathen days to the gods 
of Germanic tradition. 

Monotheism, as we understand it, was unknown 
to the Germans ; but they had the usual tendency 
towards Henotheism, the worship of one favorite god. 
Such in early Scandinavia seems to have been the 
position of Thor. Forms like ^'' got unde mir willeko- 
rnen^^^ do not show any monotheistic spirit; they 
may refer to the household deity, the Lar. Certainly 
they do not express our modern notion of God. As 
for the All-Father of Scandinavian mythology, we 
may even exclude the very probable Christian influ- 
ence, and still find ample explanation in the phrases 
of ancestor-worship. Ancestor-worship, however, had 
little or nothing to do with the actual Germanic gods, 
who haunted no barrows, were cabined, cribbed, con- 
fined in no hut or village, but 

As broad and general as the casing air, 

housed in the far-off regions of the north. So ran 
popular belief ; and northward, with outstretched 
hands, our forefathers turned, when they engaged in 
ceremonial worship. With the introduction of Chris- 
tianity, the east became cardinal point of prayer, and 
the north, as we might expect, was banned as unlucky 

1 D. M. 13. 



418 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

and a place of devils.^ Who were, then, the dwellers 
of that cold Germanic Olympus ? 

Some definite evidence on this point seems to meet 
us in the names given to our days of the week.^ 
The Germans were still of heathen faith when they 
took the names of these days from Rome and trans- 
lated them into terms of their own mythology. The 
week of seven days is naturally given by the changes 
of the moon, its so-called " quarters " ; but we seem 
to have traces ^ of a week made up of five days only. 
Of the individual days, Sunday and Monday are 
obvious translations. But Tuesday, dies Martis, is 
credibly traced to the Germanic god Tins. Wednes- 
day, dies Mercurii, has the stamp of Woden plain to 
see ; and old Thor, our Saxon Thunor, is as evident 
in the name of Thursday,* dies Jovis. Frige dceg is 
good Anglo-Saxon for the dies Veneris.^ Saturday is 
Anglo-Saxon Sceteres doeg^ but also Sceternes dceg, evi- 
dent translation of dies Saturni. The other form is 
not so easy to explain. Soetere means a seducer ; and 
there may have been a deity with that by-name, — 
Loki, the Scandinavian, has been desperately sug- 

1 R. A. 808; G. D. S. 681. In the Haverford College Studies, No. 1, 
" On the Symbolic Use of Black and White," I have collected some mate- 
rial on this subject. It is very significant that an Anglo-Saxon charm 
against wens conjures the evil into the north and to the mountains 
(Haupt's Z. xxxi. 45 ff., printed by Professor Zupitza); and a Finnish 
charm sends the pestilence to the same place. In old judicial forms this 
dislike of the north is evident : criminals were hanged on a northward 
tree. In the Frere's Tale of Chaucer the fiend (in disguise) teUs that 
he lives "in the north contre." Much more could be quoted to the 
same effect. 

2 The general question is discussed, D. M. 101 ff. See also C. P. B. 
I. 427 f. For Frisia see Richthofen, Fries. Rechtsges. II. 431 f. 

3 Ibid. 4 Old Frisian Thunresdei. 

5 Confusion of Frigg and Freyja meets us in Norse tradition. D. M. 
251. 



THE WOESHIP OF GODS 419 

gested, with a shy look at Danish Lordag as corrup- 
tion from the name of the god, — though this seems 
unlikely. Kemble suggests settere, "one who ar- 
ranges or orders " ; but the analogy with Saturn is 
after all so near as to save us much guessing. 

Evidence of cult lies, further, in those names of 
places which have their origin in the name of a god. 
For example, the strongest presumption in favor of a 
god Saetere would spring from such cases as the men- 
tion of Smteres hyrig in an Anglo-Saxon document 
under date of the year 1062 ; ^ and in Scandinavia 
the popularity of Thor and his worship is abundantly 
proved by similar means. Petersen ^ shows that the 
sturdy old god entirely distances all the other Scandi- 
navian deities, and even in Normandy and the Danish 
parts of England, the name of Thor has left its mark. 
As with places, so with persons ; and here again, so far 
as Scandinavia is concerned, we find Thor overwhelm- 
ingly the favorite,^ though Odin and Freyr are not 
neglected. It was customary there for a man to give 
his son to the service of the god, and to name the 
former from the latter. We have, in fact, two sorts 
of names derived in this fashion among Scandinavians 
of the heathen period. In the first instance any name 
might be combined with the name of deity in general, 
such as the Norse Ass or G-o^. "Thus King Raum 
gave his son Brand to the gods,* and thereupon called 
him Godbrand." ^ Or, on the other hand, the parent 

1 Kemble, Cod. Dip. IV. 457. There is a plant sattorla^e, " the com- 
mon crowfoot." 

2 Om Nordboernes Giidedyrkelse og Gudetro i Hedenold, p. 46 f. 

3 Ibid. 41, and also Vigfusson, Icelandic Diet. s.v. ]}drr. 

* Probably a substitution-survival of the hideous old rite of actual 
sacrifice of one's children. 5 Petersen, p. 39 f. 



420 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

chose the name and service of some special god ; and 
here again we find old Thor by far the most honored 
among all Scandinavian deities. Such a name was 
Thorgrim. 

The chief god of the Germans when the Roman 
came in contact with them, seems to have been Woden.i 
This is the English form of the name, although some 
of our early homilies, evidently under Danish in- 
fluence, call him Othon or Othin. The meaning 
of the name is not certain ; some connect it with the 
Old English " wood," — " enraged," " furious ; " ^ some 
with the notion of " wandering," with evident appli- 
cation to the Scandinavian myths which tell about 
Odin's travels and disguises ; and others, again, see 
in the name a reflection of the god's intellectual 
qualities.^ Certain, however, is the fact that Woden 
is the wind-god, the deity of heaven in the literal 
sense, the prince of the powers of the air, although 
he is not the original ruler of Germanic deities ; he 
has taken the place of an older heaven-god. Tins, and 
seems to have got the latter's wife in the bargain. 
This, however, is matter for mythology ; let us turn 
to the cult. 

In the first place, it is of great significance that 
we find this god in the genealogy of Anglo-Saxon 
kings ; he is ancestor of the monarchs of Kent, Essex, 
East Anglia, Mercia, Deira, Bernicia, Wessex, and the 

1 The old German form is Wuotan, or among the Saxons, Wodan ; 
the Scandinavian form was O^inn, now commonly called Odin ; and in 
oldest English men said Woden. The use of Odin in these pages indi- 
cates allusion to the Scandinavian god. 

2 " Wodan, id est furor." Adam of Bremen, 

^ D. M. 109. There has been considerable discussion in the journals 
about this etymological problem. Lippert actually suggests Woden = 
wood, timber, — " the one in the Grove ! " Culturgeschichte, p. i63. 



THE AVORSHIP OF GODS 421 

Lindesfaran.^ Beda speaks of Hengest and Horsa 
as descendants of Woden.^ Names of places in Eng- 
land and elsewhere bear the same testimony,^ and not 
only places, but animals and plants as well. The 
annalists are apt to take Woden as a king who after- 
wards was deified : " Woden," says one, " whom the 
Angles worship as chief god, and from whom they de- 
rive their origin, was a mortal man, and king of the 
Saxons, and father of many races."* The ex23lana- 
tion of this supremacy of Woden in the later heathen 
times lies in his double attribute of intellectual skill ^ 
— he is said to have "invented" runes — and love of 
war. Hence the fitness of his place as begetter of 
kings, and hence the later tendency to exalt him 
above all the gods. The constant warfare of these 
times made Othinus armipotens^ easily the central 
figure. Here, too, he seems to have taken the place 
of Tins, the older "Mars." To Odin the Scandi- 
navians ascribed the invention of their mode of attack 
in battle, the wedge-shaped column, really of far 
greater antiquity than Germanic warriors ever knew, 
and known to these Norsemen as the Boar's Head. 
Moreover, Odin was father of war itself; when he 
threw his spear, battle was born in the world.'^ The 

^B. M. m. 377. 

^ Hist. Ecc. I. 15. "Erant autem filii Victgilsi, cuius pater Vitta, 
cuius pater Vecta, cuius pater Voden, de cuius stirpe multarum prouin- 
ciarum regium geuus originem ducit." 

3 D. M. 126 f., 131 f. ; Grimm, KL Schr. II. 58 ff. Names of places 
compounded with names of this god are comparatively rare in Scandi- 
navia, where Thor is overwhelmingly the favorite. See Petersen, p. 43 f . 

4 Vita S. Kentigerni, quoted by Holtzmann, Germ. Alt. p. 251. 

5 In Roman interpretation he is called Mercurius ; and in Sal. and 
Sat. the question " Who invented letters? " is answered, " Mercury the 
Giant." See also D. M. 126. 

6 So Saxo calls him. ^ Vqluspa, ed. Hildebrand, 28. 



422 GERMANIC ORIGIXS 

spear was his peculiar weapon, and was still the chief 
arm of Germanic soldiers in the time of Tacitus. 
Scandinavian cult, in spite of Viking fashions which 
set so mightily toward the god of wisdom and war- 
fare, clung grimly to old Thor ; but it bowed enough 
to new ways to change several of its great festivals 
and in them to honor Odin, giver of ^dctory, as well 
as Thor, the protector of house and home. Such a 
feast in honor of Odin was held about the beginning 
of summer, when the campaign opened, and ways 
whether of land or of sea, became easy of passage.^ 
We may suppose this habit to have been Germanic 
as well as Scandinavian. Paul the Deacon's famous 
story shows two rival tribes asking " Wodan " for 
victory. Of course each army promised sacrifice — 
its slain enemies — in return for such a gift; and we 
find in the Norse sagas this or that hero hurling his 
spear over the heads of the hostile band, and crying : 
" Odin have you all ! " The wolf is Woden's beast, 
and the raven is his bird; the latter is also a sign of 
victory, not at all the thing of evil it became in later 
times. Even as a commonplace of diction the raven 
has joyous meaning, as in the lines of BSowulf : — 

Till the swarthy raven splendors of heaven, 
blithe-heart, boded. ^ 

Another feature of his cult which connects Odin 
or Woden with the new Germanic period, is the fact 
that he was looked upon as a protector of the mer- 
chant and sailor ; ^ he aided the bargaining of the 
former, and to the latter he gave a favorable wind.* 

1 Petersen, p. 88. 2 igoi f . 3 See material in MuUer's System, p. 187. 
4 Grimm's god " Wish " is now generally rejected. It was a person- 
ification in mediaeval poetry. 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 423 

Moreover, since he was the god that sent forth pesti- 
lence and disease, heathen logic inferred that he could 
best rescue from these ills ; as the Scandinavian cried, 
in moments of sudden danger, " Help me, Odin ! " 
so in the time of sickness. Luckily we have a 
genuine relic of the old Woden cult, an incantation 
preserved in widely sundered dialects, and of un- 
doubted Germanic origin. It is the companion charm 
to that which invoked the Yalkyrias,^ and was found 
with it in the library at Merseburg : ^ — 

Phol and Wodan fared to the holt : 

then Balder's foal's foot was wrenched. 

Then Sinthgunt ^ besang it and Sunna her sister : 

then Fria besang it and YoUa her sister : 

then Wodan besang it, who well knew how, 

the wrenching of bone, the wrenching of blood,* 

the wrenching of limb : 

bone to bone, blood to blood, 

limb to limb, as if they were limed ! ^ 

Even if we admit Bugge's theories, and let Phol 
mean the apostle Paul, and Balder mean " the Lord," 
we have nevertheless plenty of heathendom left. 
Woden is undoubtedly central figure ; and whatever 
elements have been introduced from Christian sources, 
they have been obviously substituted for the older 
heathen fashion,^ What makes this charm of su- 
preme importance is the great number of varia- 
tions found in the different Germanic countries. 
It appears in Norway and Sweden, in Scotland, in 

1 See above, p. 376. 2 ms. of the tenth century. 

3 Sinhtgunt, says Bugge, Studier, p. 297. '^ I.e. of veins. Bugge. 

5 Glued together. 

6 Bugge suggests "Frija and Wodan," p. 307 of the German trans. 
of the Studier. 



424 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Flanders, and elsewhere.^ As Sclierer says, Woden is 
" supreme physician," — and here is need of the best. 
Still another charm, this time from the Anglo- 
Saxon, shows us Woden as final appeal in a some- 
what similar emergency. In the charm of Nine 
Worts to be used against poisons,^ we have a list of 
the virtuous herbs, with one or two probable heathen 
references. Then follows : — 

These nine are opposed to poisons nine. 
Sneaking came snake, tore asunder a man. 
Then took Woden nine Wonder-Twigs : 
he smote the Nadder,^ in nine [pieces] it flew. . . . 

Thus Woden, in this place, performs an act of sor- 
cery; and the twigs are in direct accord with the 
Germanic method of casting lots described by Taci- 
tus.* These charms are of great interest. Less 
important, however, though not without bearing on 
our subject, are the many customs of peasant-life 
which seem to point back to an older worship of 
Woden. In some of the German cornfields it was 
the habit at harvest-time to leave a heap of corn " for 
Woden's horse." A writer living in Rostock in 
1593 describes the custom of Mecklenburg at rye- 
harvest, when they gave grain to the god, with the 

rhyme : — 

Wode, give thy horse fodder. 
Now thistle and thorn, 
Next year, better corn ! ^ 

1 See D. M. 1030 ff. ; Bugge, Studier (Germ, trans.), 301 ff. ; Roch- 
holz, Deutscher Glaube, I. 281. 

2 Wiilker-Grein, Bihliotheh, I. 320 ff. ; Cockayne, III. 30 ff. 

8 Adder. 4 Qerm. X. See below, p. 467. 

5 D. M. 128 f. Grimm gives a number of parallel cases. See also 
Mannhardt's Feldculte ; Pfannenschmidt, p. 107 ff. 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 425 

Trees were sacred to him, and in his grove offerings 
were made of captives, criminals, or even beasts. 
His worship was widespread and deeply rooted ; when 
the heathen, by a specified oath, renounced their old 
faith and joined the church, they were compelled to 
name Woden as one of the devils and monsters.^ In 
Scandinavia he seems to have received, in Viking 
days, supreme honors ; but, as we shall presently see, 
Thor was the real god of the Northmen. Still, in 
the famous temple at Upsala in Sweden, described by 
Adam of Bremen, Odin was represented by an image 
" like to Mars," — that is to say, fully armed.^ He it 
was who received the soul of the warrior in the new- 
fashioned heaven of Viking Scandinavia, Valhalla; 
and to him the men of war everywhere — and war 
was everywhere — put up their prayers and in stress 
of battle offered service, child, or proper life. By 
the Interpretatio Romana he was called Mercury. 

To Thunor, as the Anglo-Saxon called him, the 
Thor of the Scandinavian peasant, there must have 
belonged a widespread Germanic cult. Especially 
was this the case among the Norsemen, where, as 
Petersen's book shows beyond doubt, Thor "the 
land-god" was worshipped above all other deities. 
He was called Jupiter by the Romans, and that not 
solely, we may imagine, on account of his thunder- 
bolts. It is probable, however, that in the Grermania^^ 

1 Renunciation used under Boniface by Saxons and Thuringians : 
" Ec forsacho allum diaboles wercum and wordum, Thunaer ende Wo- 
den ende Saxnote ende allum them unholdum the hira genotas sint." 
"I forsake all devil's works and words, and Thuner and Woden and 
Saxnot and all the monsters who are their companions." 

2 " Wodanem armatum sculpunt." Adam Br. IV. 26. 

3 Cap. IX. See also Zeuss, die Deutschen, p. 25. 



426 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Tacitus calls him Hercules; for Miillenhoff reminds 
us that with the Romans Hercules was not only a 
hero, but also a god. Additional testimony to Thor's 
or Thunor's importance is the fact that the arch-fiend 
of Christian times, the devil himself, takes the place 
of the old thunder-god.i In Scandinavia men made 
most solemn oaths in calling upon Thor, and they 
celebrated his feast at the sacred time of Yule.^ As 
god of the home and all that belongs to it, he was 
worshipped first and foremost of the deities ; and we 
may be sure that the rough satire of the Har bards 
Lay, where Odin boasts of his own amorous and 
warlike feats, mocks Thor for his homely ways, and 
generally plays the miles gloriosus^ was not meant for 
the ears of peasants. They prayed to him for a mild 
winter, an early spring, and generous crops ; his first 
thunderings heralded return of warmth and vegeta- 
tion.^ As late as the eighteenth century a Scandi- 
navian woman was known to pray regularly to Thor ; * 
and the Anglo-Saxon homilies bear witness to the 
stubbornness of Thunor's cult on English soil. 

Thor's thunder, audible sign that he and his ham- 
mer were fighting ice-giants and obstinate spirits of 
the northern hills, was regarded as more a benefit 
than a terror. It symbolized fertility ; and we find 
several plants named after the thunder.^ The wood 
of a tree which had been struck by lightning was 
good for many purposes, and toothpicks made of it 

1 D. i>f. 151, and Chap. XXXIII. throughout. See also Roskofe, Ge- 
scJiichte des Teufels. In favorable matters he is represented by Elias. 

2 Petersen, p. 63. 

3 Unowned or lordless land was given to Thor. Grimm, Kl. Schr. 
II. 56 ff. 

4 Holtzmann's D. M. 67. ^ d. M. 152 f. 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 427 

are still thought to cure the toothache.^ Any man 
who was smitten by the bolt was regarded as particu- 
larly happy in his taking-off.^ Of trees, the oak was 
dedicated to the thunder-god, — a bold and not igno- 
ble piece of religious invention. His day was Thurs- 
day, still in every regard a lucky day ; in Scandinavia 
the traditional day for a wedding, and of good right, 
if we consider that it was Thor's hammer which 
"hallowed" every bride.^ The public assembly was 
held in most Scandinavian districts on the Thursday ; 
and we must remember the hammer-cast which marked 
out the borders of a judicial court, as well as the fact 
that Thor was the patron and god of such an assem- 
bly. Most significant is the vast number of Scandi- 
navian names which are compounded with the name 
of Thor ; places — where we may compare the Ger- 
man Donnersberg — and people abound in proof of 
this favorite patron ; while but few can be found 
which bear the stamp of other gods or goddesses.* 
Indeed, some of the names are directly associated 
with the processes of cult; Thorkell, for example, 
from Thorketill, and probably Thurston from Thor's 
stone. ^ Not only these names ; the kennings which 
express the god himself, are full of significance for 
his worship.^ 

Almost alone of Scandinavian gods, Thor found last- 
ing representation in a rude picture carved on stock 
and stone,'' even on ships,^ — "a long-bearded face, 

1 Wuttke, Aberglauhen, p. 93. 2 x). M. 145. 

3 Petersen, p. 70 f . 4 Petersen, p. 41 f . 

5 D. M. 155 ff. 6 c. P. B. II. 464 f. 

7 Petersen, p. 33 f . 

8 Ibid. 84. It is probable he was once god of battles. 



428 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

with the hammer hung beneath " ; ^ while his actual 
image was adorned with gold and silver, and set up 
in the holy places. Runes, moreover, add their testi- 
mony to the universal nature of Thor's cult in Scan- 
dinavia.^ Even the vanity of our Germanic ancestors 
took a religious bent, or more correctly went hand in 
hand with superstition, inasmuch as their ornaments 
were often made in the shape of Thor's famous ham- 
mer. Some of these ornaments are of striking 
beauty,^ and were meant to hang as charms or amulets 
about the neck ; for to Thor men prayed in times of 
sudden danger, as well as in sickness and want.* He 
was chief guardian of the home ; and on the posts of 
the high-seat, where sat the master of the Norse 
household, was carved the face of Thor. Viking 
belief assigned the souls of dead warriors to Odin, 
while "Thor has the thralls" ; — yet not as god of 
the thralls did he take them, but rather because the 
servants were part and parcel of the household.^ 

The god whose old Germanic and Gothic name 
must have been Tius, Old High German Zio, Scandi- 
navian Tyr, but in English was known as Tiw, was 
once worshipped as the heaven-god, but seems to have 
been the war-god as well. A gloss of the Epinal 
MS.^ which goes back to the seventh century, a most 
venerable witness, makes Tiig the same as Mars.^ 

1 C. P. B. II. 464. 2 Petersen, p. 51 ff. 3 ibid. p. 75. 

4 Ibid. 56; and Adam of Bremen says of the Thor image at Upsala: 
" Si pestis et famis imminet Thor ydolo lybatur." 

5 Ibid. 62, A mass of information about Thor may be found not 
only in Petersen's work, but in the brilliant piece of investigation by 
Uhland, Der Mythns von Thor. While the bulk of the book is taken 
up with theories about the " meanings " of myths, there is much solid 
material. ^ The g in this form shows it to be of Mercian origin. 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 429 

As with the other gods, places were named after 
him ; ^ and songs of battle were chanted in his honor.^ 
It is supposed that he was the deity worshipped in 
the grove of the Semnones ^ with such strenuous rites. 
Tacitus tells us that human sacrifices were offered to 
Mercury and Mars, — that is, to Woden and to Tins ; 
and similar offerings to a war-god are related by 
the historian Procopius.* The sword-dance described 
above ^ was doubtless in honor of this god, and Grimm 
connects with him the worship of swords recorded by 
old historians.^ At the time of Tacitus and in the 
neighborhood of central and northern Germany, Tins 
seems to have held the place taken in later times by 
Woden. His day, Tuesday, has a few superstitions 
connected with it which point to older cult; for 
instance, it must be on the Tuesday that the plant is 
gathered which warriors use for crown." 

In Scandinavian cult we find not only a Tyr, but 
a god who is really a ''hypostasis" of Tyr or Tins, — 
Heimdall, "the world-glad." Rams were sacrificed 
to him. Another hypostasis of Tins, and more inter- 
esting to us, is Saxn^at or Saxn^t, "the sword-com- 
panion " or brother in arms,^ who figures above as 
one of the gods to be abjured in the Old German 
renunciation, and is undoubtedly Tins under another 
name.^ Saxneat plays an important part in the 

1 D. M. 16i ff. 2 Ibid. 171. 

3 See below, p. 441, and Tac. Germ. XXXIX. ; Ann. IV. 64. 

4 Gesch. d. d. Vorzeit, Procop. p. 124. 5 Above, p. 198. 

6 D. M. 169; Simrock, 3l7jthoL 272 f. 7 Grimm, G. D. S.^ 88. 

8 Zeuss, p. 25 ; W. Miiller, Sijstem, p. 22G f . 

9 These names indicate various phases of warfare, as MullenhofE 
notes in his important paper in Schmidt's Zeitschrift f. Geschichte, 
Vol. VIII. 



430 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

Anglo-Saxon genealogies, — for example in the royal 
ancestry of Wessex. 

Two inscriptions which Scherer laid in 1884 before 
the Berlin Academy, would seem to show that Tins 
even acted as guardian and god of the popular legal 
assembly. He appears as "Mars Thingsus," thing 
being the Germanic term, still used in Scandinavian 
tongues, for a legislative body. The inscriptions 
were found in 1883 on two large votive altars near 
the old Hadrian's wall in Great Britain, at a place 
called Housesteads ; they show that the altars were 
erected by a division of Frisian cavalry serving as 
part of the imperial army under Alexander Severus 
(222-235), and for some special aid or favor were 
dedicated to Germanic deities, — Mars Thingsus and 
the so-called Alaisiagae^ Bede and Fimmilene, — as 
well as to the Roman imperial famil}^ F. Kauffmann^ 
asserts that Mars Thingsus, while undoubtedly Tins, 
is not addressed as a god of popular assemblies, but 
as the patron deity of that battalion or division ; for 
the Germanic army was arranged by clans, and the 
name of a tribal assembly could be transferred to a 
military brigade. However that may be, here is Tins 
worshipped by very near relatives of our own ances- 
tors, whether or not as god of the popular gathering. 
We may remember that these meetings were under 
the special protection of a god, and hence were always 
controlled by the priests, who alone had power to 
command silence and to punish offenders.^ 

Another god is called in Scandinavian myths 
Freyr. He is interesting to us as the probable god 
whose worship was most popular among our coast- 

1 r. B. Beltrdge, XIV. 200 ff. 2 Tac. Germ. XI. 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 431 

dwelling ancestors hj the German Ocean. In the 
opinion of certain scholars, Frejr and Beowulf, the 
hero of our old epic, are one and the same god, and 
with Scandinavian Freyja and Niorthr represented a 
brother and a sister who were worshipped by the 
Ingsevonic race as far back as the time of Tacitus. 
The female was then known, in Roman translitera- 
tion, as Nerthus,^ and her cult is described by the 
historian. In this worship were bound together 
Reudigni, Aviones, Anglii, Yarini, Eudoses,^ Suar- 
dones, Nuithones, — all of them tribes which lived in 
Schleswig, Holstein, and about Elbe mouth. Ner- 
thus, explains Tacitus,^ is Mother Earth, and these 
people " believe that she enters into human affairs, 
and travels about among the people. In an island of 
the ocean there is a sacred grove, and in it a holy 
chariot covered with a cloth. Only the priest is 
allowed to touch it. He knows when the goddess is 
present in her consecrated place, and in all reverence 
accompanies her as she is drawn about by cows. 
These are joyful times and places which the goddess 
honors with her presence, and her visit makes holiday. 
People begin no war, do not take up arms, all weap- 
ons are put away; peace and quiet only are then 
known and welcome, until the priest leads back to 
her holy place the goddess, now wearied of mortal 
fellowship. Then the wagon, the covering-cloths, 
and, — if one cares to believe it, — the divinity her- 
self, are washed in a hidden lake. These services are 
performed by slaves whom the same lake presently 

1 She is not mentioned in the Edda. 

2 Supposed to be the ancestors of our Jutes. See also Moller in 
P. B. Beitriige, VII. 505 f. 3 Qerm. XL. 



432 GERMANIC ORIGIN'S 

swallows up. Hence spring the secret terror and tlie 
sacred ignorance about something which is seen by 
those alone who are doomed to immediate death." 
This is the oldest detailed account of Germanic wor- 
ship, and its subject is a goddess of peace and plenty, 
who makes for the promotion of agriculture, trade, 
and the arts of civilization. In Scandinavia, centu- 
ries later, we find a god Niorthr who loves the water, 
and especially the swan's song, and is worshipped by 
seafaring folk as the protector of traders and trades. 
The fact that our old Germanic goddess was wor- 
shipped in a season of general peace points to mer- 
cantile opportunities ; and the meeting of the related 
tribes under such a sanction was doubtless the occa- 
sion of barter and trade, — like the Easter or Michael- 
mas messe of mediseval Germany. That trade was an 
object of these meetings is proved by the account of 
the Suiones in Tacitus,^ by the religious gatherings 
at Upsala in Sweden described by the later historian, 
and by the story of places like Lethra in Denmark, 
and Throndhjem in Norway, where trade and cult 
went together hand in hand. Hence the gods of 
traffic, agriculture, peace. The cult of Nerthns, says 
Miillenhoff,^ arose in commerce with foreign sailors 
and tradesmen, and naturally was full of associations 
with the sea. A few vague allusions and survivals, 
such as the ship drawn by German weavers in the 
neighborhood of Cologne, or the mention of a ship 
in connection with the worship of " Isis " — the Inter- 
pretatio Romana again — may help to strengthen our 
notion of this old cult.^ 

1 Germ. XLIV. ^ Haupt Z. N. F. XI. 11 f. 

3 D. M. 214 ff. ; Germ. IX. ; Simrock, Mtjthol, p. 369 f. 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 433 

The name of Nerthus, which suggests a Celtic 
word meaning " strength," is evidently to be con- 
nected with the later Scandinavian Niorthr, who in 
the Edda is father of Freyr : they were originally one 
and the same person. Corresponding to Freyr and 
Freyja in the Norse system, scholars have assumed 
a Niorthr and Nerthus, the same pair under other 
names. In Sweden, Freyr was a very prominent 
god, and his image stood beside the images of Thor 
and Odin. Freyr, like the older Nerthus, had a 
chariot which was drawn about the countryside every 
spring, while the glad people worshipped and made 
holiday. In the chariot was a young and beautiful 
priestess, answering to the priest who went about 
with the wagon of Nerthus.^ Here, too, was a time 
of peace ; and Freyr was asked to give rain and sun- 
shine, fertile soil, and a prosperous year.^ He pre- 
sided over marriages ; and Adam of Bremen speaks 
of his image as a god of fecundity. The boar was 
sacred to him, and was not only sacrificed to him, 
but is said to have drawn his wagon ; while even in 
recent times, Swedish folk were wont to bake cakes 
in the shape of a boar, remnant of the old Freyr- 
offering.^ Curiously enough, in the account of the 
^stii, whom he evidently takes to be Germanic,* 
Tacitus says they worship a Mater Deum and wear 
figures of the boar.^ These were probably made not 
of metal, but of wood, or of an even softer material. 
As the military spirit waxed with conquest, the peace- 

1 D. .¥. 208. 2 Ibid. 176. 

3 Ibid. 41. 4 Mullenhoff, D. A.ll. 29. 

5 The wagon is a conspicuous thing in the cult of the Phrygian 
magna deum mater. Lucret. de rer. nat. II. 597 ff., and D. M. 211. 



434 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

ful emblem served as warlike decoration; Anglo- 
Saxon warriors wore the boar upon their helmets; 
and the boar's head, on which Scandinavian warriors 
took oath, is known in the Christmas feasts of Eng- 
land. Oxen, too, we find used for this sacrificial 
purpose, and hear of them occasionally under the 
poetical name of Freyr.^ Horses, too, were sacrificed 
to this god ; and in Sweden on solemn occasions the 
slave, the captive, or even the citizen, was offered as 
a last resort. 

Petersen gives a few Scandinavian proper names, 
which were compounded with the name of Freyr.^ 
This, itself, means simply "prince," "lord," "master," 
and is familiar to us in its feminine form, as the Ger- 
man "Frau." Freyr and Freyja are simply "the 
lord " and " the lady " ; they could appear under dif- 
ferent names, as in Anglo-Saxon the god Ing, men- 
tioned by a poem known as the "Rune Lay," and 
evidently the ancestral god of the Ingsevonic race, is 
undoubtedly none other than Freyr.^ Significant in 
this reference of the Rune Lay is the mention of Ing's 
chariot, which, as Miillenhoff remarks, is assigned only 
to the highest gods : — 

Ing was erst with Eastern Danes 

seen on earth, but eastward since 

o'er the wave he went ; his wain ran after. 

Thus did Hardings the hero call. 

Ing is further mentioned in our Anglo-Saxon gene- 
alogies ; ^ and in Beowulf we have the frea Ingwina^ 
"lord of the Ingwine." Beowulf himself, as has 
been said above, is assumed by many as another 

1 D. M. 176, 179. For other survivals of the cult, see D. M. III. 76 f. 

2 Gud. p. 42 f. 3 Bugge, Studier, p. 2. 4 j), m. III. 384 f- 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 435 

phase of the same deity .^ There is no doubt that 
the cult of this divinity or group of divinities, cen- 
tred near the North Sea, and attested from earliest 
times, is for us the most interesting fragment in all 
Germanic mythology; it is an authentic, even if 
blurred and rapid glimpse, at the religion of our 
own forefathers.^ 

Let us now look for a moment at the Scandinavian 
Freyja, the later representative of Nerthus. Unfor- 
tunately, she has been confused with Frigg (this is 
the Norse form, as is also Freyja), the wife of Odin. 
Thus in Anglo-Saxon genealogies, we have " Frea " 
set down as Woden's wife, whereas the proper name 
in Anglo-Saxon would be Fricg.^ In all Norse cult, 
Freyja is abundantly worshipped, and in close rela- 
tion to the cult of Freyr. She gave men fertility, 
peace, and happy wedlock. Boar and ox were sacri- 
ficed to her ; * she has, like Nerthus, the chariot of 
highest divinity. Connection with ancestor-worship 
is found in the widespread belief that a woman fared 
directly to her after death; in Christian times, the 
legend ran that souls spent their first night after 
death with her successor, St. Gertrude, the second 
with the archangels, but on the third went as their 
doom directed.^ The cat was sacred to her ; a happy 
recognition of her manifold connection with household 
blessings, and not, perhaps, without influence on the 
later belief about witches.^ As Grimm remarks, when 

1 See the preface to Mannhardt's Mythol. Forschungen, in Q. F., LI. 
p. xi. 

2 Have we a phase of the Terra Mater in that mention of Erce, and 
the folde, fir a modor, of the Anglo-Saxon charm? 

3 D. M. 250. 4 For oxen, see C. P. B. I. 228 ; Hyndlul. v. 36 f. 
^D.M. 50. « Ibid. 254. 



436 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

a bride goes to marriage in fair weather, folk say that 
she "has fed the cat well." Lovers prayed to Freyja, 
and for the purposes of cult, as well as by the tradi- 
tions of mythology, she is in every way Germanic 
goddess of love. 

Probably Freyja and Frigg, Frea and Fricg, were 
originally one and the same goddess; and further- 
more, Bugge 1 may be right in ascribing many of the 
tales about Freyja, to the stories heard by Vikings, 
and less truculent travellers, about the classical 
Venus. As Lady of the Gods, however, Fricg, the 
wife of Woden, must go back to an older consort of 
the older god, — Tins, we may conjecture. Remains 
of the cult of Fricg are collected by Grimm.^ As 
wife of Odin, she was worshipped in Scandinavia, 
and like Freyja — one may almost say as Freyja — 
she presided over marriages, and was called upon for 
help by barren women. J. M. Kemble has found 
relics of Fricg cult in England ; and they have been 
noted in Lower Saxony .^ Perhaps the local name 
Freckenhorst is derived from her worship. 

Near the mouth of the Scheldt were discovered, in 
1647, numerous altars and other stones containing 
inscriptions to one Nehalennia; and similar inscrip- 
tions have since been found at Deutz on the Rhine. 
The goddess is represented " in costume like a Roman 
matron " ; a dog is often near her, as well as baskets 
of fruit. Sometimes she appears with Neptune, and 
has her foot upon the bow of a ship. Kauffmann 
sees in her a goddess of sailors, explains the name 
Nehalennia itself as ultimately based on the Ger- 
manic word for "ship," and, as others have done, 

1 Studier, p. 10. 2 2). M. 252 f . 3 ibid. 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 437 

brings her cult into connection with the account given 
by Tacitus of the Germanic worship of Isis. As Isis, 
this Germanic goddess was worshipped by the for- 
eigners who thronged the border regions, or came 
hither in the Roman ships ; for Tacitus speaks of the 
Frisian waters as thickly navigated by such craft. 
So far Kauffmann. Grimm thought the name was 
Celtic and connected with the word for "spinning."^ 
Another cult is mentioned by Tacitus, — that of the 
goddess Tanfana. While the deities mentioned above 
belonged to the circle of Ingsevonic religion, this god- 
dess seems to have been best known to the Ist^vones ; 
and since it was among these tribes that the worship 
of Woden began and grew into such stately propor- 
tion, scholars have conjectured that Tanfana was his 
companion. Let us hear Tacitus.^ The legions 
made a night attack upon the Marsi, who were 
encamped not far from the modern Dortmund, hold- 
ing festival, " lying upon their beds or about the tables, 
care-free, not even with their sentinels posted . . . 
there was no fear of battle, and yet no peace, unless 
it were the languid and disordered peace of drunk- 
ards. ... A space of fifty miles [the Caesar] lays 
waste with sword and flame. Not sex, not age, were 
spared, things public nor things sacred (j>rofana simul 
ac sacra) ; even the temple which is most famous 
among those races, which they call the temple of 
Tanfana, — all was levelled with the ground." An in- 
scription has also been discovered, — Tanfanoe. sacrum ; 
but its genuineness is denied.^ Another deity casually 

1 n. MA 347, 404 ; Simrock, D. M. 373, 576 ; KaufEmann in P. B. Beit. 
XIV. 210 ff . 

■2 Ann. I. 50 f. It is the year 14 a.d. ' 3 d. 3/. 64, note 2. 



438 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

mentioned by Tacitus, and of probable Germanic 
belongings and Celtic origin, is Baduhenna ; ^ and an 
inscription to a goddess Hludana has been connected 
with the Scandinavian Hlothyn, — a connection 
stoutly denied by Sophus Bugge.^ 

We are concerned here not with myth but with 
actual worship, and cannot delay over names like that 
of Balder. Even if Balder was a real Germanic god, 
we have no traces of his cult, save in the charm given 
above — where Bugge contends that Balder is simply a 
title, "the lord,"^ — and in the names of a few places. 
He had a son, Forseti, " f oresitter," president of a 
court, the ideal judge; and Grimm connects this son 
with the Frisian god Fosite.^ Of this god's cult some 
account has been preserved. Liudger, a Christian 
missionary preaching the gospel among his heathen 
brethren, sailed to the island Helgoland (holy isle),^ 
on the borders oi the Danish and Frisian folk, called 
after the name of the god Fosetesland (a nomine dei 
falsi Fosete Foseteslant est appellata). Another holy 
man, Willibrord, visited this island ; and we are told* 
that it was entirely dedicated to the service of the god. 
A well or spring was sacred to him, from which none 
durst drink save in utter silence. Temples — what- 
ever we are to understand by the term — were erected 
in his honor ; treasure was gathered there ; and flocks 
and herds grazed about the place, not to be touched 

1 Ann. IV. 73. 2 Studier, p. 574. 

3 On the other hand, J. Grimm thinks Phol a familiar form of Balder. 
D. M. III. 80. 4 Fana Fosetis. See D. M. 190, III. 80. 

5 Moller, Altengl. Volksep. p. 91, note, thinks that Helgoland was the 
sacred isle of the Saxons south of the Eider, and not to be identified 
with the holy isle of the North Anglians, described by Tacitus, Ger- 
mcmia, XL. 40. 



THE WORSHIP OF GODS 439 

by mortal. It was believed that death or madness 
would fall upon the wretch who desecrated any of 
these things ; moreover, the king was wont to punish 
such offenders in the direst fashion (atrocissima morte). 
Willibrord baptized three persons in the well, and his 
men killed some of the sacred animals; hence lots 
were cast by the outraged heathen to see if the Chris- 
tians should die. One man was thus marked for ven- 
geance, but favoring lots allowed the saint and his 
other companions to go free. When Liudger came, 
he destroyed temples, groves, and whatever savored 
of the heathen cult. The name, Fosetesland, was 
of course consigned to silence ; but " Helgoland " pre- 
serves the memory of ancient sanctity. Adam of 
Bremen says the place was especially venerated by 
sailors and pirates, "whence it takes the name Heilig- 
land." As late as the eleventh century, superstition 
maintained its old terrors ; and it w'J^s believed that 
if any one committed robbery on the island, even in 
regard to the meanest object, he would suffer ship- 
wreck or a violent death. To the hermits who were 
settled about the place, pirates brought a tenth part 
of their gains. There is no doubt that this island was 
a chief sanctuary of our heathendom, and Richthofen 
is inclined to see in Fosite the "president" of the 
gods, Woden himself.^ 

"•• In his book on Friesische Rechtsgeschichte, II. 399 ff., 424 f., 431 f ., 
434 ff., Richthofen has collected the material used above, — the lives of 
the two saints, the account of Adam, etc. 



440 GERMANIC ORIGINS 



CHAPTER XV 
FORM AND CEREMONY 

Places of worship — Temples — Images and columns — Priest 
and priestess — Prayer, offering and sacrifice — Survivals — Divi- 
nation and auguries — Runes, 

Wheke did the Germans worship ? According to 
Tacitus,^ who indulges here in a bit of rhetoric, they 
think it unbecoming the greatness of the gods to shut 
them in with walls or to image them in human shapes. 
This delicate reasoning never occurred to a German; 
but it is evident that, as a fact, he had no temples 
such as the Romans had, no statues of the classical 
sort, and, of course, nothing of that art which lent 
itself so readily to the purposes of sacred decoration. 
But places of worship he must have had ; and these, 
as we are told in a somewhat obscure passage of the 
G-ermania^ were groves. Islands seem to have been 
favorite places for the purposes of a cult ; and, as we 
have just seen, all of Helgoland was given up to 
such a use. Still, groves were the best-loved temples. 
The house of gods, like the house of men, could be 
built about a tree ; and we cannot altogether reject 
the romantic reason, added by Jacob Grimm, that 
something oracular and divine attracted the early 

1 Germ. IX. 2 wm.. "Luces et uemora." 



FORM AND CEREMONY 441 

worshipper in the swaying of branches and the low 
murmur of the leaves. We may suspect from the 
exquisite tortures which tradition assigned to him 
who injured a tree, that it was once a question of 
divine as well as human property, — like the Jupiter- 
Oak which Boniface cut down. Mention is made 
repeatedly of these sacred groves among the Germans. 
Such was the grove of the Semnones, described as 
follows by Tacitus.i " At a specified time, represen- 
tatives of all the clans of this race assemble in a 
forest which is sanctified by ancestral auguries and 
immemorial fear, formally offer up a human sacrifice, 
and celebrate their awful and barbaric rites. A pecul- 
iar reverence attaches to this grove. No one enters 
it unless bound with fetters, in order to show his own 
humble case and the power of the divinity ; and if he 
chances to fall, he is not allowed to rise and stand 
up ; prone as he is, he must roll along the ground. 
The whole superstition implies that in this grove is 
the origin of the race, here lives the deity who rules 
them all, while all the rest are but subject and tribu- 
tary." Mention is also made of a silva Herculi sacra, 
and of a lucus Baduliennce? The grove of Nerthus is 
another example ; and even the " temple " at Upsala, 
described by Adam of Bremen, seems to have been 
originally a grove. Moreover, we know that there 
were places of sacrifice in these primitive temples — 
harharce arm is what Tacitus calls them.^ The simple 
forest fashion, however, seems hardly to have required 
an altar, and in its early simplicity Germanic worship 
was doubtless content to hang the victim, or parts of 
it, directly upon the sacred tree itself. Around this 

1 Germ. XXXIX. 2 Xac. A)%n. II. 12, III. 73. 3 gee Ann. I. 61. 



442 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

sacred tree, with its fresh hung offering, marched or 
danced the worshippers, singing as they moved, and 
dedicating their gift to the local deity. ^ Miillenhoff 
refers to a dialogue of Gregory the Great, where the 
heathens are described as running in this fashion 
about a goat sacrified " to the devil," with dedication 
of song and dance. ^ 

It is not improbable that this place of worship was 
at the same time a place of burial, and in many cases 
may have been fixed originally by the tomb of a 
powerful ancestor, the founder of the race. Scattered 
branches of such a race would naturally unite at 
stated times about this centre of sacred tradition. 
Trees are planted at the place of burial, or a grove 
is chosen at the outset. " Each grove," says Tacitus, 
"is named after the god to whom it is sacred"; and 
it is not unreasonable to apply this to ancestral as 
well as to elemental worship. Such a tomb as is 
described at the end of Beowulf may well have 
been a typical place of worship for Ingaevonic 
tribes ; ^ and the mingling of human legend with 
myth pure and simple — for Beowulf is as much 
god as hero — agrees in all probability with the 
confusion of two forms of worship. Lippert would 
refer to a similar origin the mediaeval association 

1 " Germani ea, quae diis offerebant, non cremebant neque aras neque 
altaria more grseco ac romano habebant, sed capita abscissa et exuvias 
victimarum similiter et homines diis dicatos, sacris arboribus suspeu- 
debant ; his quoque ferro csedere et scrobibus, aqua ac coeno mergere 
solebant." Miillenhoff, de antiq. German, poesi, pp. 11, 12. 

2 Ibid. Salt springs were also sacred places, for, as we saw above 
(p. 69), the god was thought to help the process of salt-making. Ann. 
XIIL 57, and Amm. Marc. XXVIII. 5. 

3 Interesting is the Anglo-Saxon word cumhol, which Cook {Mod. 
Lang. Notes, 1888) shows to mean mainly a cairn. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 443 

of sanctified, bones and other relics with the church 
itself.i 

Very early in its development, this Germanic place 
of worship would have a formal enclosure, made by 
ditch or wall or hedge ; and of course the inmost 
part of the primitive "temple" would need all 
possible privacy — secretum illud, as Tacitus calls it.^ 
Progress from such an enclosure to walls and formal 
building would be a matter partly of development, 
partly of influence from the pagan world. We should 
like to know how the English "fane" appeared which 
High-Priest Coifi helped to demolish. Beda ^ speaks 
of the aras et fana idolorum cum septis, quibus erant 
circumdata, and says that Coifi, lance in hand, went 
up to the idols. This would indicate buildings and 
images. 

Jacob Grimm insisted upon the existence of temples 
of elaborate fashion, and cited that " templum . . . 
Tanfanee " which the Romans razed to the ground. 
Moreover, he called attention to the Frisian law of 
later times, which imposed penalties for the violation 
of a temple.^ In Scandinavia, at least for the later 
period, we must allow temples in the modern sense. 
The Norwegian emigrants who went to Iceland took 
with them materials of their old heathen temples, as 

1 Rel. d. eur. CulturvolTcer, p. 169. 

2 Germ. IX. Arminius speaks of the gods who dwelt within these 
penetralia as unseen by the people, and seen only by the priests. Ann. 
II. 10. 3 Hist. Ecc. II. 13. 

4 " Qui fanum eff regit , . . immolatur diis quorum templa viola^at." 
See also Holtzmann, Germ. Alt. 176. The Germans seem to have 
thought that " death or madness " would fall upon the profaner ; when 
the god did not punish, his priest or king took the task. See the ac- 
count of the sacred place on Helgoland, p. 438, and Richthofen, Fries. 
Recht. p. 401. 



444 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

well as earth from under the altars. In the Eyrhyg- 
giasaga we are told of a definite case,^ where it is the 
caretaker of a temple sacred to Thor, who emigrates. 
When he rebuilds in Iceland, whither he had carried 
,"most of the woodwork," the new structui^e is "a 
great house, with doors in the side walls and near one 
end. Inside were the pillars for the high-seats, and 
in them nails called the gods' nails." It is evidently 
an exact imitation of the old temple in Norway, 
This heathen temple of Scandinavia seems to have 
been a rectangular building, rounded at one end, after 
the manner of an apse or choir in certain Christian 
churches, and running from west to east.^ Besides 
this, there occurs a round temple, which may have 
been the more primitive form.^ The material was 
doubtless timber. Decoration and metal work were 
matter of imitation and opportunities ; the lavish use 
of gold, which makes Adam of Bremen speak of the 
temple at Upsala as totum ex auro paratum, is not 
a characteristic of early Germanic fanes. Neverthe- 
less, we hear of great treasure found in the temples 
of the heathen Frisians.* In the primitive grove, 
with rough enclosure, there was doubtless ornament, 
but of a more barbarous fashion, — emblems and 
mystic signs, approaching the fetishistic order. In 
the "apse" were set up the images, such as there 

1 p. E. Muller, SagahihUothek, I. 190 f.; Maurer Bek. d. Norw. St. 
II. 190, note. 

2 This explains the advice of Pope Gregory to use the English temples 
as Christian places of worship. See Petersen, p. 20, from whom much 
of this summary is borrowed. 

3 Petersen, p. 23. Dimensions of the other kind of temple are noted ; 
in one case, 120 by 60 feet. 

4 Richthofen, II. 379. " Magnum thesaurum quem in delubris inve- 
neraut." 



FORM AND CEREMONY 445 

were ; and before them was a sort of altar covered 
with iron, whereupon burned a fire that durst not be 
extinguished, — " the sacred fire." ^ Here lay the ring, 
dipped by the priest in sacrificial blood, and upon 
which all oaths were sworn ; but when the chieftain 
presided at popular meetings, he wore this ring upon 
his hand. 2 On this altar, moreover, stood the vessel 
which held the blood of sacrifice. No one was allowed 
to carry arms within the temple. 

We have spoken of images set up in the " apse " of 
this later Scandinavian temple. What were they? 
Evidently in Scandinavia these were direct portrayals 
of the gods, as is clearly proved by the account so 
often quoted from Adam of Bremen. For older 
stages of our culture, we must observe great caution ; 
and if we find mention of images, we must ascer- 
tain definitely what we are to understand. In the 
Qermania^^ a sanctuary of " Castor and Pollux," so 
called, is said to have no images, nulla simulacra; 
but the Germans, as Tacitus elsewhere informs us, 
were wont to bear into the battle signa deorum^ — 
effigies et signa. What are effigies et signa? The 
school of anthropologists who lately have been pick- 
ing our poor Germanic myths to mere shreds and 
tatters, tell us in their interpretatio Africana that the 
emblems in question were nothing more than fetishes, 
— old weapons with the head of a beast.* Better is 
the theory of Miillenhoff,^ though after all the differ- 

1 Petersen, p. 24. 2 Maurer, Bek. d. Norw. St. II. 190. 

3 Cap. XLIII. 4 nei a. eur. Cult. 121. 

5 De antiq. German, poesi, p. 13. Holtzmann refers to the later use 
of animals in coats of arms. See also Tac. Hist. IV. 22, for the effic/ies. 
Miillenhoff's words are: "signa . . . arma et instrumenta, quae a 
mythologis nostris attributa dicuntur, e.g. lancea Mercurii (Wodaui) 



446 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

ence is nominal, that the signa were sundry signs or 
attributes of the gods, as the lance of Woden or 
Thor's hammer ; while the effigies were figures of ani- 
mals, like Woden's wolf or the goat of Thor. We 
hear of a bull among the Cimbrians, and of a snake 
among the Lombards, used for such a signum. The 
moment when line of battle was formed and the 
attack was begun, counted among the most sacred 
occasions possible in Germanic life ; and these signa 
doubtless meant for the soldier the presence and aid 
of the deity invoked. They were borne into battle 
by the priests, and doubtless had been adored and 
consecrated during the night in their sacred grove, 
amid rites of the cult and that indispensable banquet 
" per noctem " which always preceded a Germanic 
fight.^ We must also bear in mind another sort of 
images, which could have analogy with these " signs," 
— the posts of the high-seats, carved with the image of 
a god or his symbol. After a great victory over their 
rivals, the Saxons ^ set up a column with an " effigy " 
of one of their gods. Much has been disputed about 
this triumphal affair; but it seems to have been not 
so much an image as a huge pillar with rude carvings 
of a head and the usual symbols. Another and later 
account is more explicit. In 772 Charlemagne waged 
war against the Saxons, who were stubborn to des- 
peration in their heathen faith; and he destroyed a 

malleus Herculis (Tonantis, Thunaris), gladius Martis (Tivi), phallus 
Liberi . . . sed effigies secundum ipsum Taciturn (Hist. IV. 22) ima- 
gines erant ferarum quae symbolice deos ipsos indicabant ut anguis . . . 
et lupus Mercurium, ursus et caper Tonantem. ..." 

1 Miillenhofe, work quoted, p. 13; Tac. Ann. I. 65, II. 12; Hist. IV. 
14. 

2 In 530 A.D. The account is given by Widukind of Corvey, I. 12. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 447 

sacred place of theirs which contained an Irminsul^ a 
column standing in the midst of a sacred grove, and 
held by all the neighboring tribes in boundless vene- 
ration. This Irminsul is called now the " fane," now 
the "idol " ; we shall hardly err in explaining it as a 
column more or less carved. The annals speak of 
masses of treasure which Charles carried away from 
this "temple," a trait which Grimm thinks quite 
legendary, the flourish of a chronicler, but which 
Richthofen defends as historical.^ It seems reason- 
ably sure that, whatever the nature of this Irminsul^ 
the heathen Frisians — they were our nearest conti- 
nental relatives — had regular idols or images. The 
missionaries speak with horror of a heathendom which 
can seek help from stones and from deaf and dumb 
images, " a lapidihus . . , et a simulacris mutis et sur- 
dis;^'' and Richthofen's defence of this and other 
testimony seems to be valid.^ 

In Iceland and the Norse realm generally we find 
regular images of the gods. Adam of Bremen dis- 
tinctly testifies to the three images at Upsala in 
Sweden, — Odin, Thor, and Freyr (Fricco) ; Odin 
as a warrior in mail, Thor, with sceptre, holding the 
middle place as greatest god, Freyr with the custom- 
ary phallic symbols of fecundity and peace. Direct 
testimony about similar images in various parts of 
Scandinavia is collected by Petersen.^ Maurer says 
that little images of the gods were carried, amulet fash- 
ion, in the pocket of the pious Norsemen.* Figure- 



1 Grimm, D. MA 95 ff. Richthofen, p. 381 ff. 

2 Ibid. 421 ff., 448 f . No image of Foseti is mentioned in the account 
of Helgoland. 

3 Work quoted, p. 33 ff. * BeTc. d. Norio, St. II. 231. 



448 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

heads of the Norse ship are probably to be referred 
to a similar origin. We hear, moreover, of prayer 
where the Norseman bowed before his images, or 
even threw himself on the floor of the fane ; he 
did not look at the images, but held his hands 
before his eyes "in order to shut out the blinding 
glare of deity." 

Priests were a Germanic institution known in all 
the tribes ; ^ but it is better not to lay too much 
stress upon a priesthood. Caesar, denying a priest- 
hood, really concedes German priests ; ^ the Cimbrians 
in Italy had priestesses ; and Tacitus goes so far as to 
define priestly duties among the tribes of which he 
writes.^ In public life the German priest played a 
leading part, and, aside from times of war, seems to 
have had more civil power than even the head of 
the state ; indeed, Scherer thinks * that Munch and 
Maurer were right, against Waitz, in attributing 
priestly power to the chieftains. This assumption, 
as we shall see, derives its strongest support from the 
practice of Scandinavia ; though there is an extreme 
case of priestly authority mentioned by Ammianus in 
his account of the Burgundians. The king, he says, 
may be deposed, if fortune desert the tribe in its 
campaigns or in its crops ; but the priest (sinistus) 
may not be deposed.^ If we are only willing to waive 
the question of identity and not to consider too curi- 

1 W. Muller, Sijstem, p. 82. 

2 VI. 21. His denial is based on comparison with an elaborate system 
like that of the Druids. Grimm, D. M. 73. 

3 Minister deorum is his term for priest. * Anzeiger H. Z. IV. 100. 

s " Nam sacerdos apud Burgundios omnium maximus vocatur Sin- 
istus et est perpetuus, obnoxius discriminibus nullis ut reges." Am. 
Mar. 28, 5, 14. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 449 

ously the personality of the priest, we may find a 
clear and definite summary of his functions in the. 
account of Tacitus, who tells us that a public priest 
casts the lots; accompanies the progress of a god- 
dess; has charge of the sacred things — effigies et 
signa ; is present at the great assemblies of the peo- 
ple, commanding silence and invoking divine protec- 
tion ; and, when sentence has been pronounced upon 
criminals, is entrusted with execution of the sentence.^ 
In heathen Scandinavia it is a positive principle that 
all details of worship are closely connected with the 
administration of affairs in general, and testify to 
a union of church and state. ^ The king is high 
priest ; and where a " jarl " acts as viceroy, he per- 
forms the king's duty at sacrifice and banquet. In 
Iceland, the judicial districts were each under control 
of an officer who was at once judge and priest ; and 
Maurer seems to assume that this custom was com- 
mon to all Germanic races.^ The place of justice, of 
oath and trial and lawsuit, was the place of prayer 
and sacrifice. It was also, in all probability, a place 
of trade, as is proved by the history of many a holy 
resort which develops into a centre of trade, the 
capital city of the land. Trade and justice demand 
peace ; and peace was only possible under the awful 
sanctions of a present god. 

Little information reaches us in regard to the dress 
and habits of a Germanic priest. Beda says that 
Anglo-Saxon priests bore no weapons and rode upon 
mares, which as late as Chaucer's time was deemed 
a disreputable mount.^ It is probable that the official 

1 Germ. X., XI., XL., etc. 2 Petersen, p. 1 fe. 

8 BeTc. d. Norw. St. II. 210. 4 n. M. 75 ; R. A.m ff. 



450 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

robe of a priest was white,^ and we hear of Gothic 
priests " with hats," in distinction to the ordinary 
freemen with flowing locks. Striking is the costume 
of the Cimbrian sibyls, — gray-haired women dressed 
in white, with red over-garment and metallic girdle, 
but bare of foot. They cut the throats of the cap- 
tives, and let the blood flow into a brazen kettle, — 
evidently priestly functions ; while the wise-woman, 
of whom much has already been said,^ was doubtless 
held in reverence little inferior to that felt towards 
the priests themselves. 

Conjecture and uncertainty surround our efforts 
to discover the details of private or public rite con- 
ducted by these priests, and we must content our- 
selves with what we know of their ceremony as a 
whole. To us, perhaps, the simplest form of worship 
is adoration ; but already in this " adoration " we have 
the notion of prayer and of the movement of the lips. 
Prayer, a crude desire for good to the person who is 
praying, may be attributed in some form to primitive 
races; but it is not the initial act of religious ceremony. 
Grimm distinguishes three periods of worship; the 
first knew only sacrifice, the second combined sacrifice 
and prayer, the third had prayer alone.^ But Tylor, 
who remarks that even the rude charm is really a 
prayer, seems to reject this classification ; ^ and we 
may allow some form of prayer in the rudest cult. 
Prayer was undoubtedly a matter of bended knee, 
crossed hands, and uplifted eye. Tacitus tells us 

-^D.M. III. 39. 

2 Above, p. 141. See also Csesar B. G. I. 50. 

3 J. Grimm, ilber das Gebet, Kl. Sclir.'il. 460. 

4 P. a II. 364, 373 f. \ 



FORM AND CEREMONY 451 

that the priest who cast lots glanced towards heaven 
as he took up the kevils ; ^ while from other sources 
and survivals it has been surmised that the German 
looked in supplication towards the north as the home 
of his gods. As to the words or form, it is signif- 
icant that Old Germanic poetry, while it contains 
plenty of greeting and invocation, does not preserve 
us a single prayer ; and it is supposed by Meyer that 
this omission is made purposely .^ 

But the simplest form of worship is not a definite 
prayer, as we understand the word — a desire for good 
expressed to a power capable of granting what we 
wish. The primitive act is prostration as if before an 
earthly king, the sign of surrender and absolute sub- 
mission.3 To fling one's self on the ground, or to bow 
neck or head, expresses the elementary act of relig- 
ion. But after submission comes tribute, and indeed 
this is the main fact which proved submission, just as 
prostration symbolized it. Tribute to a heavenly 
power, whether conceived as ancestor or as personal 
power of nature, took a form which we call sacrifice. 
Of this presently. 

Solemn chant and hymn, with dance, are among 
the earliest symbolic acts of worship. Scherer in his 
Poetik is at considerable pains to show why men 
should have hit upon these expressions of emotion, 
and sees erotic excitement as one of the leading 
causes.* Devil-dancers and medicine-men testify to 

1 Germ. X. 2 r. m. Meyer, Altgerm. Poesie, p. 389. 

3 We have many of these symbolic motions in the submission of 
mediaeval vassals to their masters. Pretty is the passage in the Anglo- 
Saxon Wanderer, when the exile dreams he is once more laying his 
head between his nfaster's hands, and on his knee, and is " clipped " 
and kissed. , 4 Poetik, Berlin, 1888. 



452 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the connection of dancing with religious excitement ; 
and we may imagine that the pleasure of muscular 
exertion, analogous to the delights of feast and revel, 
was once thought to be shared by the spirits and the 
gods themselves. Dancing was a common occurrence 
in the rites of field and harvest. About the last load 
of grain, or the figure set up in the yard, the peasants 
form a ring and dance. ^ Dancing on and by the an- 
cestral graves has been mentioned already ,2 and the 
village dance-place, undoubtedly a survival of the 
older place of sacrifice, is in some places still con- 
secrated with great pomp and ceremony.^ Even the 
Christian church took over from heathendom this 
custom of dancing as a part of religious ceremony, 
and it would seem that the councils were forced to 
take measures against the abuse ; * so firmly was the 
practice fixed in popular tradition, that we hear of 
nuns dancing in a church — this in the eighth and 
ninth centuries — and of repeated rebukes from the 
clergy.^ The word Idc means in Anglo-Saxon both 
a religious ceremony and a game or play, a dance 
or "leaping"; the second syllable of "wedlock'" is 
the same word, and points to a religious ceremony. 
Altogether, we may be sure of the great importance of 
dancing in the ceremonies of our heathen forefathers. 
Undoubtedly, however, sacrifice was the central 
fact, and Grimm remarks that many of the words 
used for prayer go back to the notion of an offering.^ 
Symbolic acts such as the already-mentioned prostra- 
tion in the grove of the Semnones, are, of course, 

1 Pfaimenschmidt, pp. 38, 99. 2 ibid, iqq, 3 ibid. 286 f. 

4 Probably in the Council of 742, held under Boniface. 

5 Pfannenschmidt, p. 489 f. ^ Ueher das Gebet, Kl. Schr. II. 461. 



FOEM AND CEREMONY 453 

ancient enough; and we know that in Scandinavia 
men bowed before the i images on ordinary occasions, 
but in formal prayer threw themselves down and 
prayed in the dust. Still, all this was only an out- 
ward flourish of the sacrifice. Religion was cere- 
monial and a bargain ; the gods were not thought to 
give blessings pour les beaux yeux of their worshippers. 
We have all grades of importance in the nature of 
the offering, from a simple gift of milk or flesh or 
grain carried out to a grave, or set in the corner of 
the house, up to the sacrifice of human beings. The 
German word for offering, and that for sacrifice, have 
disappeared : both expressions are now of Latin ori- 
gin.i We may suppose that there were several words 
corresponding to the several kinds of offering, since 
we know that there was, in the first place, food 
given directly to the spirits of the dead, and that 
there was food or drink set out for the spirits 
connected with one of the elements. Out of this 
simple notion may grow an elaborate cult, such as 
the one found on the island of Riigen and described 
— perhaps seen 2 — by Saxo Grammaticus. The rites 
are Slavonic, but are probably not very different from 
the Germanic fashion. On the northernmost cliff 
of the island, with three sides of rock falling sheer to 
the sea, the fourth side an artificial barrier, lay the 
sanctuary. It was a wooden temple with double en- 
closure. Within was an enormous image which had 
four heads and was invested with a sword. In its 
right hand it held a horn made of different metals, 

1 For connection of bless and hlood, see Skeat, s.v., and Sweet in 
Anglia, III. 156. 

2 Lippert, Relig. d. eur. Cult. p. 92 ; Saxo, XIV. II. 319. 



454 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

which the priest annually filled with wine, wherein 
he read the prosperity of the coming year. The cult 
was very simple. After harvest of each year, all 
people of the island came together at this temple, 
sacrificed certain animals, and celebrated a great 
feast. Before this, however, the priest was expected 
to sweep out the precincts of the temple with a sacred 
broom, taking care not to breathe while within, but 
running outside as often as he was forced to draw fresh 
breath. On the day of the feast, the horn of wine is 
examined, and emptied at the feet of the image ; new 
wine is then poured into the vessel, while the priest 
drinks to the god. A great cake is laid upon the 
altar, which must vanish before another year. Prayers 
are made for a good crop, and then the priest dis- 
misses the people to their feast. All this is merely 
an expansion of the primitive and simple rites of 
element and spirit cult. 

The libation is a detached ceremony of these early 
rites, with evident origin in the worship of the dead. 
The early missionaries speak of a drink-offering (^dia- 
holi in amorem vinum hihere) which they met in 
heathen ceremonies ; in simplest form it is the minne- 
drinJc to a dead relative and so ranging up to the 
OdirCs minne itself. An interesting passage in the 
life of St. Columbanus by Jonas Bobbiensis, early 
in the seventh century, tells of a group of Suevi 
gathered about an immense vessel full of beer, with 
which they were about to sacrifice Qitare) to their 
god Mercury, whom they called Wodan. The vessel 
was probably an "offering kettle," and the rites were 
unmixed with severer features, — merely a libation.^ 

1 Grimm, D. M. 46, 51. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 455 

The saint blew (literally) the cask to pieces. Of 
course, all this holy fervor did not drive the drink- 
offering into absolute- disuse ; there came the usual 
substitution of saints for heathen gods in the matter 
of libation, the drinking of St. John's or St. Ger- 
trude's minne in a Christian church, as well as the 
survival in social customs, the loving-cup and the 
toast. 

Mention is frequently made of milk, honey, fruit, 
even flowers, as offering in family worship. Yet it is 
probable that most of these offerings are compro- 
mises ; they represent ancient rites of a far sterner 
character, and the blood of a victim slain upon the 
tomb. Heathen Germans of the early historical 
period had a few of these compromises, concessions 
to advancing culture ; the Indiculus forbids, among 
other things, the baking of cake and bread in form of 
some animal — doubtless the beast ordinarily sacri- 
ficed to the god in question. In a Norse saga we 
find this mentioned as a part of formal worship ; men 
" baked images of the gods ; " ^ and there are many 
survivals known to students of folk-lore as well as to 
the youthful purchaser of a gingerbread horse. Other 
compromises for ancient sacrifices are the usages of 
field and harvest to which we have frequently 
referred. Reapers leave a few stalks of grain stand- 
ing in the field and still declare that it is for Wode 
or some other disguised deity of old ; while the 
Holstein peasant will not pick the last half-dozen 
apples from his tree.^ 

The sacrifice of animals themselves may have been 
at one time a compromise for more horrid rites, but 

1 Frithiofs. and D. M. 51. 2 j), m, 47. 



456 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

this is to consider too curiously for our purposes. In 
animal sacrifice, blood plays its great part ; for it has 
always been matter of popular' belief that the gods 
hold with Mephistopheles : — 

Blut ist era ganz besondrer Saft ; 

and the shade of an ancestor, the spirits of the dead, 
are thought to love nothing so much as the warm, 
red sap of life. Blood was the original savor and 
charm of sacrifice, the most grateful part of the 
offering. 

The sacrifice of animals was conducted with de- 
liberate pomp. Horns of the victim were gilded, 
and garlands were hung about its neck and " silken 
flanks." It Avas led thrice about the altar or else about 
the whole assembly ; and was killed by the altar- 
stone amid song and dance of the worshippers, who 
were themselves decked out in festal array. The 
blood was caught in vessels or in a pit, and with this 
blood priests smeared sacred trees, altar and walls 
of the holy place, and sprinkled the assembled multi- 
tude. Entrails, heart, liver, lungs, were devoted to 
the gods ; the rest was devoured by the people.^ The 
cost of such a sacrifice was defrayed out of public 
funds, and was a state affair. Fire played its part, 
as usual, in ceremonial as well as practical purpose ; 
and we may fancy that natural desire would prompt 
the association of a liberal drink-offering. 

Sacrifice differed according to its purpose and 
occasion. It might be a matter of joy, revel, and 
feasting, or it might be the sterner rite to expiate a 
sin or avert some pestilence ; in the former case, deity 

i Pfannensclunid, p. 38 f . 



FORM AND CEREMONY 457 

would be an honored guest, but in the latter, the 
god would appear as an angry and exacting master. 
The latter would be extraordinary; the former a 
matter of regular recurrence, like the festal dates of 
Midsummer, Easter, and Yule, or the more frequent 
celebration of full or new moon. Feasts of this sort 
are to the present day bound up with religion ; we 
hold them in our houses, and leave the church to 
provide for more purely devotional ceremonies.^ 

The favorite animal for sacrifice seems to have 
been the horse, though ox, boar, and ram, were often 
used; 2 and the cock must have played a brave part.^ 
Color was of great importance, and the male sex was 
alone accepted. White horses, white cattle, were 
special favorites ; and a host of cases could be cited 
where folk-lore has preserved this prejudice for the 
white.* On the other hand, black animals — without 
speck of other color — were also chosen for sacrifice, 
and in witchcraft, residuary legatee of much old 
sacrifice-lore, black cats, cocks, and so on, are particu- 
larly popular. But the horse was prime favorite for 
sacrifice.^ In the famous passage of Tacitus ^ which 
describes a battle between two German tribes for the 
possession of a salt-spring, we are told that the victors 
"had dedicated their opponents to Mars and Mercury ; "^ 
and in accordance with this vow, horses, men, all that 

1 The councils forbade " convivia in ecclesia preparare," See Pfan- 
nenschmid, p. 341. 

2 D. M. 40 ff. 3 Helm, 271 f. See, too, a host of legends. 

4 I have examined this peculiarity at some length in a paper * ' On 
the Symbolic Use of the Colors White and Black in Germanic Tradi- 
tion," Haverford College Studies, I. Philadelphia, 1889. See also Sim- 
rock, Mythol. 510 f . 

5 See above, p. 40. 6 j_nn. XIII. 57. 

7 All prisoners were to be sacrificed to Tins and Woden. 



458 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

the conquered possessed, were given to destruction." 
Here we have a sacrifice in the grand style ; while 
"horses and men" has the true nomadic ring. A 
valued article of food, the horse must be a gracious 
offering to the gods, and was held as sacred among 
the Germans as it had been among the inhabitants of 
ancient Persia. Its use for sacrifice and for divina- 
tions continued down to modern times, witness two 
striking survivals, — one from Denmark, and one 
from Switzerland. In Thiele's Folk-Tales of Den- 
mark,^ we are told of a peasant who has a changeling 
foisted upon him, and cannot tell his own baby from 
the intruder. He takes a wild colt, and lays before 
it on the ground the two children in question. Look- 
ing at one child, the horse is fain to stroke it and 
remains very quiet; looking at the other, it rages 
and tries to trample the changeling to death. This 
is exactly in line with the statement of Tacitus ^ that 
the horse was used for divination, and that particular 
attention was paid to his neighings; while yet an- 
other parallel to the Danish anecdote is a ceremony 
of Slavonic worship practised on the island of Riigen 
nearly a thousand years ago, in which white horses 
sacred to the god Svantohvit were used as oracles 
after the following fashion. Before the temple was 
laid a triple row of lances, and it was noted whether 
the sacred horse first crossed the line with his left 
or his right foot.^ The second survival comes from 
Switzerland.* In 1815, a peasant girl had St. Vitus' 
dance and, despite all ordinary remedies, failed to im- 

1 Danmarks FolJcesagn, II. 276. 2 Qerm. X. 

3 See Lippert, Bel. d. eur. Cult. p. 99. 

4 H. Runge in Zst.f. Mythol. IV. 5. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 459 

prove under treatment. At last, the parents took a 
horse, burned a quantity of straw which was fastened 
to its neck, and then buried the horse alive in a deep 
pit along with a number of household implements. 
This was expected to cure the girl, no matter how 
desperate her case ; it was a last appeal. A more 
agreeable form of this cult, however, was the sacri- 
ficial banquet, a highly popular festivity; as result, 
the eating of horse-flesh was sign of heathendom, 
and remains taboo down to the present. Heathen 
Swedes were called " horse-eaters " by their con- 
verted brethren.^ Heads of horses and other sacrifi- 
cial beasts, often the hides as well, were hung on 
trees as an offering to the gods.^ 

But it was not only horses that figured in the Tac- 
itean account ; men were included, as they were in 
all highly important sacrificial rites. Here, indeed, 
we enter the chamber of horrors in ethnology; for 
human sacrifice, to quote the words of Victor Hehn, 
" peers uncannily from the dark past of every Aryan 
race."^ To offer the dearest, the best, is a logical 
outcome of the doctrine of sacrifice ; but the anthro- 
pologists tell us that the custom opens the door upon 
a passage which leads back to cannibalism itself. 
Originally a simple matter of give and take, sacrifice 
became later an act of propitiation or thanksgiving, 
with some faint ethical notions, perverted enough, 
shimmering about it. The Germans appear in history 
with sufiiciently marked love of human sacrifice — 
witness the Cimbrians in Italy, the wholesale sacrifices 
among warring German tribes, and the direct testi- 

1 D. M. 38 f., 877. 2 gee Rochholz, Glanhe, I. 251 f ., II. 145 ff. 

3 CuUurpfL p. 438, note. 



460 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

mony of Tacitus, who gives us specific cases and a 
general summary. Of these instances, besides some 
already given, we may note the visit of Germanicus 
to the battle-field where Varus had been routed with 
his legions.^ " There lay broken weapons, limbs of 
horses ; on tree-trunks hung the heads. In neigh- 
boring groves were the barbarian altars whereon they 
had sacrificed the tribunes and centurions of the first 
rank ; " while prisoners who had escaped the fate of 
that terrible day point out to Germanicus how many 
gallows were set up for the prisoners, and how many 
pits had been prepared. These pits were probably 
places in which the captives were buried alive. In 
the Germania^^ Tacitus makes some general state- 
ments, and tells us that on " certain occasions " ^ 
human victims are offered to " Mercury," while 
"Mars" and "Hercules" must content themselves 
with animals; and in the passage quoted above, he 
speaks with some abhorrence of the bloody* and 
barbarous rites of the grove of the Semnones. A 
chain of evidence reaches from Tacitus down to the 
borders of the middle ages. In the fifth century, a 
king of the Goths, attacking Italy, vows, if he shall 
be favored with victory, to offer the conquered Chris- 
tians to his god. Jordanis, in his history of the 
Goths,^ after saying that the race was so famous, men 
actually believed the god Mars to have been born 
among them, narrates concerning the worship of this 
deity that prisoners of war were sacrificed to him " in 
the belief that one who disposes the fortune of war 
ought to be propitiated by human blood." Moreover, 

1 Ann. I. 61. 2 ix., XXXIX. s Certis diebus. 

4 " cfesoque publice liomine." ^ Cap, V. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 461 

to this " Mars " men promised a part of the booty, 
and captured weapons were hung upon trees in his 
honor. Procopius says that the Franks, in the year 
539, after they had crossed the Po in their invasion 
of Italy, slew the women and children of the Goths 
and hurled their bodies into the river as first offer- 
ings of the war. " For," says Procopius, in pious and 
patriotic horror, " though these barbarians have be- 
come Christians, they still keep up many of their 
heathen customs, such as human sacrifice and other 
horrible offerings. . . ." ^ The Saxons, says the 
Roman writer Sidonius Apollinaris,^ when they were 
about to leave the coast of Gaul and sail for home, 
sacrificed the tenth part of their captives, — with tor- 
ture; and this is confirmed by later accounts. We 
have already noted a law of the heathen Frisians that 
whoso broke into a fane or sacred place should be 
sacrificed to the gods whose temples (templa) he had 
violated.^ Dietmar of Merseburg relates that every 
ninth year the Danes celebrated a great festival at 
Lethra, their chief city, early in January, and sacri- 
ficed ninety-nine men and as many horses, — the 
"equi, viri," of Tacitus once more. Adam of Bremen 
tells of the sacrifice of men made at Upsala in Sweden, 
and of the corpses hung up in the sacred grove.* 

However, on occasion, "the dearest" could mean 
more than any of these things. In times of great dis- 
tress, private or general, in sickness, danger, famine, 
pestilence, the alarm might rise to a point where no 
alien sacrifice could measure the height of calamity, 

1 Procop. d. hell. Goth. II. 25. 2 vill. 6. 

3 Lex Fris. add. sap. tit. 12. Other cases, Richtliofen, II. 454 f. 

4 B. M. 39 if. ; Adam Br. IV. 27. 



462 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

and some " dearest " thing of family or race must be 
offered to the god. Dearest of the dearest was the 
king. In olden times the sacrifice of the first-born 
seems to have been more or less common ; and sur- 
vivals meet us in Scandinavian legend, where the old 
ferocity lingered longest. Kings offer their sons. A 
certain monarch, in order to secure length of days, 
sacrifices one after another his nine sons to Odin.^ 
In a time of famine, the Swedes sacrificed oxen the 
first year, without relief ; then they took men ; but 
the third year bringing no help, they offered up their 
king, D6maldi. In the Hervararsaga ^ we are told the 
following story of the brave but evil-minded Heid- 
rek: "In a year of famine, the wise men, after they 
had made a sacrifice, said that the noblest child in 
the land would have to be offered. Heidrek prom- 
ised to give his son on condition that every alternate 
man in the whole population should swear obedience 
to him ; but with this great army he attacked King 
Harek and offered him and his men to Odin." To 
be sure, this was niddingsvcerJc, clear treason; but 
the gods were apparently satisfied. P. E. Miiller, 
mentioning the story that King Hakon offered up 
his son, refers to a number of similar cases.^ We 
have elsewhere occasion to note the custom of sacri- 
fice at funerals,* — slave, subject, wife, and friend. 

The usual human sacrifice, however, was of cap- 
tives, criminals, or slaves. The slaves who are em- 

1 See also Tnglingatal, in C. P. B. I. 247; Tylor, P. C. II. 403. 

2 P. E. Miiller, Sagabibliothek, II. 559 f. 3 Sagabibliothek, III. 93. 

4 See p. 319 f . The sacrifice of Odin " himself to himself " is usually- 
put under this head ; but, in spite of a writer in P. B. Beitr. Vol. XV., 
I think the arguments of Bugge con-\ancing to the extent of regarding 
this episode as an imitation of the Christian account of the crucifixion. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 463 

ployed about the grove of Nerthus, Tacitus reminds 
us, are drowned in the lake ; and the Roman's reason 
of secrecy is quite fanciful. It was probably an 
ordinary sacrifice. In the same way, when Alaric 
died and was buried in the Italian river-bed, such 
slaves as did the work were killed.^ The execution 
of a criminal was originally a sacrifice to the god 
whose peculiar cult had been offended by the crime 
in question. Boundaries, as we have seen, were 
sacred places ; and thither criminals were brought for 
execution.2 

Everywhere survivals meet us based on the notion 
that a human life must be sacrificed at the beginning 
of any important piece of work. We have seen what 
the Franks, converted as they were, thought neces- 
sary before they crossed the Po in their invasion of 
Italy. The Vikings of Scandinavia, when they 
launched a new ship, would bind a victim to the 
" rollers" on which the vessel slipped into the sea, and 
thus redden the keel with sacrificial blood.^ That 
the doctrine of souls and manes-cult generally played 
its part in many of these rites, is quite beyond ques- 
tion. Lippert relates * the stor}^ of a king of Siam 
who had built a new gate. He chose three men, set 
before them a sumptuous meal, gave them peculiar 
instructions about their ghostly watch by the gate, 
and forthwith had them beheaded and walled into 
the new structure.^ A modern shudder is all very 

1 Jordan. 29 ; and Hehn, p. 443. 

2 See the quotation from Juliana, 635, given p. 55, above ; and 
Grimm, Kl. Schr. II. 74. 

3 The so-called Hhinn-rod, C. P. B. I. 410, ref. II. 349. See word in 
Cleashy-Vigfusson Lex. 4 (7, v. V. p. 457. 

5 Other instances, Tylor, P. C I. 106 ff. and note 1. I quote the 
second ed., London, 1873. 



464 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

well ; but in 1843 when a new bridge was to be built 
at Halle, the good folk vainly insisted that a child 
ought to be walled into it in order to insure good 
luck.i Legends are told of children who were thus 
sacrificed; and we hear of music to drown their 
cries, and caresses to soothe them in their last 
moments, that their angry spirits might not harbor 
spite against the survivors. 

The horror of these things shades away, under 
Christian influence, into many a harmless supersti- 
tion ; 2 a lamb is built into the altar of a Danish 
church, a chicken is forced to run first over a new 
bridge and is then killed, and even in our own day 
it is best to send cat or dog into one's new house, 
before a member of the family enter. A gingerbread 
horse, eaten at a given time, replaces the sacrifice ; 
and even the harmless bottle of champagne broken 
over the bow of a new-launched ship is not without 
relation to that victim once bound to the rollers of 
a Viking launch. 

Some account of the details of human sacrifice is 
preserved to us from Scandinavian heathendom. Ari, 
born in 1067, was as near to the old Scandinavian 
rites as Beda was to the Anglo-Saxon,^ — about 
seventy years from the arrival of the first Christian 
missionary. The altar, he tells us, was of stone, and 
had to be kept red and gleaming with sacrificial 
blood. " There is still to be seen the doom-ring 
wherein men were doomed to sacrifice. Inside the 
ring stands Thor's stone whereon those men who 

1 D. M. 956. 2 Ibid, 956 ff. ; Simrock, MythoL 508. 

3 This remark, and the quotatiou, are taken from C. P. B. I. 403. 
See also Petersen, 26 ff. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 465 

were kept for the sacrifice had their backs broken, 
and the blood is still to be seen in the stone." The 
blood was caught in kettles, and in old times may 
have been mixed with the beer or other drink of the 
assembly ; sometimes it was baked in bread or cakes. 
The " kettles " were also used for boiling the flesh 
of cattle and similar offerings ; and Grimm mentions 
the witches' kettle of later times. A homely super- 
stition makes such a witches' kettle out of that re- 
flection of a fire or a light which one sees through 
the window : — 

Under the tree, 
When fire out doors burns merrily, 
There the witches are making tea.^ 

Finally, — putting aside the hideous hints of can- 
nibalism which ethnology thrusts upon us, — we must 
assume that the modern banquet, dinner, collation, 
whatever savor of food or drink is deemed indispen- 
sable for the beginning of any scheme, the welcome 
or despatching of any great personage, the celebra- 
tion of any event, — all go back to the sacrificial feast. 
A fair measure of " heathendom " lurks in everybody, 
— not to speak of certain other instincts familiar to 
the savage mind. 

Such were the gifts and fees which immortals had 
of man ; in return they were expected to give him 
not only present help, but counsel and warning for 
the future, and this in oracular answer to his query. 
Much has been said already, in an incidental fashion, 
of the heathen ways of divination and auguries; a 
few words must be added, in this place, with regard 

1 Wliittier, Snoiuboiind. 



466 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

to the distinctly religious ceremony. Casting lots 
was an appeal to the gods, and was carried into the 
daily round of life, being as applicable to the merest 
domestic details as to the greater problems. As re- 
gards the latter, tradition tells us that our forefathers 
in their German home cast lots to see what part of 
the crowded population should emigrate to Britain. 
Says one of them : — 

In our fatherland 

are curious customs. 

Every fifteen years 

is the folk assembled, . . . 

and lots are thrown then. 

On whom they fall 

he shall fare from the land. 

Five shall linger ; 

the sixth shall leave, 

out from his kin 

to a land he kens not.^ 

Further back in the history of our race, we meet an 
authentic instance of the ceremony, preserved by the 
pen of Csesar. While Ariovistus and his army lay in 
camp, Csesar sent to him certain envoys, C. Valerius 
Procillus and M. Mettius, to learn his intentions. 
But as they entered the camp of the German leader, 
he called out before all his host, and asked what 
the strangers had in view, — if they were come to 
spy? Scarcely had they begun to answer, when he 
ordered them to be flung in chains. After this, Caesar 
offered battle daily, but Ariovistus would not respond 
except by skirmishes. Asking certain German pris- 
oners the cause of this delay, Caesar was told that the 

1 Layamon's Brut, Ms. Cot. Cal. 13, 654 ft. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 467 

women had declared, as result of the lots and divina- 
tion, that if Ariovistus hoped for victory he must not 
give battle before the new moon. Csesar forced a bat- 
tle, and won it. The envoy Procillus, whom the Ger- 
mans were carrying away in their flight, broke from 
his captors, and meeting Csesar, told of a perilous 
sojourn in the barbarian camp. Thrice the lots had 
been cast in his presence to determine whether he 
should be put to death by fire, or kept until another 
occasion; and each time the lots were in his favor.^ 
It is important to note that here, as among the Cim- 
brians, women — matresfamilias — determine and an- 
nounce the decree of fate. 

Most valuable is the information given us by Tac- 
itus in regard to the process itself. Blocks are cut 
from the wood of a fruit-bearing tree, — one may 
think of the beech,^ — marked with certain signs 
(iiotce)^ and scattered at random on a white ^ cloth ; 
then they are picked up — that is, three of them, one 
by one — by the state-priest or by the father of the 
family, according as the ceremony is public or private, 
and the marks are interpreted. This interpretation 
gives a favorable or unfavorable answer to the ques- 
tion.* Tacitus goes on to say that the noise and 
flight of birds are used here for divination as in other 

1 Caes. B. G. I. 47-54. The same story is told of S. Willeliad, who 
preached to the heathen Frisians in the eighth centiuy. Lots were 
cast to decide whether he was to be punished by death or to be set free. 
On Heligoland, S. Willebrord had a like experience. Richthofen, Fries. 
Rechtsgesch. II. 375, 401. 

2 The traditional etymology of "book" from "beech" has been 
called in question. See Sievers in Paul's Gi'dr. I. 241. 

3 The color is to be noted. 

4 Germ. C. 10. Similar rites, partly Christianized, abound in the 
middle ages. See Richthofen, Fries. Rechtsges. II. 451. 



468 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

countries ; but peculiar to Germany is the custom of 
divining by means of horses, which are kept at public 
cost in the groves, and must be of snow-white color 
as well as spared from all ordinary work. When 
they draw the sacred chariot, either the king or the 
prince, along with the priest, accompanies them and 
marks the manner of their neighings. As yet another 
means of divination, the duel is mentioned which 
serves as a sign of the outcome of battle.^ 

Returning to the bits of wood and the white cloth, 
we ask whether these mysterious marks (notce) were, 
as scholars have assumed, the runes of which we hear 
and see so much in later times. Wimmer, in his 
great work on runes,^ has shown that we have to deal 
with an imported alphabet, based on the Latin of the 
empire, and introduced into Germany about the end 
of the second century of our era. This would ex- 
clude the time of which Tacitus is writing. But it 
is quite possible that certain signs were in vogue 
among the Germans, imported from Roman or other 
neighbors and used purely for these purposes of divina- 
tion ; possible, too, that certain originally Germanic 
signs, rude pictures, or what not, which were called 
runes, were afterwards discarded for the wonderful 
Roman symbols. Indeed, as Sievers says,^ it is quite 
possible that the Roman alphabet was used in this 
hieratic fashion as early as the time of Tacitus. 
Roman coins were familiar enough ; and it is signifi- 
cant that " rune " means the same as " mystery." 

The runes were cut — " written " — in the wood, 

1 See above, p. 184. 

2 The German edition, 1887, contains the author's latest corrections. 

3 Paul's Grdr. I. 239. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 469 

and in the first instance have a magic signification. 
We are told that the Alans used twigs which they 
marked with incantations ; ^ and ample evidence is 
forthcoming for Germanic tribes, especially in Scan- 
dinavia. Miillenhoff ^ explained the process of divi- 
nation by the fact that these runes were symbols of 
initial sounds, and it was the business of the priest 
to make out of his runes an alliterating verse which 
gave answer to the question of the hour. An Anglo- 
Saxon gloss translates sortilegus by tanlilytaf where 
tan is, of course, the " twig " of wood wliich Tacitus 
describes. But as the use of runes increased, they 
were carved on objects with the idea of an enduring 
magic, as upon the sword which should thus make 
the wound it gave a mortal one ; or in different pur- 
pose, another inscription on a hostile sword would 
cause it to lose all virtue of destruction.* 

These magic processes were forbidden by the church, 
and, coming thus under ban, laid the foundations 
of witchcraft and the black art generally. Enchanted 
cup and potion played a great part. It is significant 
that when ^Ifric translates portions of the Bible into 
his native tongue, he omits that verse in the story of 
Joseph which points to divination on the part of the 
hero.^ Sometimes, however, the church allowed a 
harmless substitution, as when a leechdom directs the 
peasant how to cure his cattle. "Take two four-edged 

1 Amm. Marc. 31, 2. 

2 In Zur Runenlehre, Halle, 1852, by himself and R. v. Liliencron. 

3 Wright-Wulker, Col. 189. 

4 See C. P. B. II. 704. For women as workers of runes, see Wacker- 
nagel-Martin, Ges. deutsch. Lit. 1. 14 and notes. For the whole subject, 
see Odin's Magic Lay, and Norse literature passim. 

5 Genesis, xliv. 4. 



470 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

sticks " — evidently the old rite — " and write on either 
stick, on each edge, the paternoster to the end. . . ."^ 
Saints' names, as was shown by the charm for barren 
fields, were used for a similar purpose. Parallel to 
the course from coaxing processes into modern magic, 
runs the path by which the old hostile incantation 
was developed into the dreaded " curse " of mediaeval 
superstition. A curse which is meant to cut off the 
sufferer from all joys and privileges of life is pre- 
served in Norse poetry, where the maiden Gerthr, 
beloved of Freyr, at first rejects his embassy of love, 
and is threatened with dire calamities ; if she will not 
send the wished reply, then may so-and-so happen. 
Frightened at the sweep of this Ernulphian terror, 
the maid relents.^ It would be of infinite value to 
the historian if he could win back the popular litera- 
ture of England in the time of conversion and the 
early days of the church. It is recorded of Dunstan 
that " he loved the vain songs of ancient heathendom, 
the trifling legends, the funeral chants " ; and it is 
said that he was accused of "sorcery." What we 
call "sorcery," the charming of person, of weapon, 
of place, the spell which brought ruin to all that 
touched the accursed object, — like the famous gold 
of the Nibelungs, — all this must have lain heavily 
on Germanic life. In what race has not the same 
period of development found itself clogged with this 
weight of superstition ? 

The chant, or singing, which lingers in these 
names of charm and incantation, is certainly a relic 
of the old choral ceremony about a heathen altar. 
Poetry begins as handmaid of religion, and the 

1 Cockayue, I. 387. 2 Skirnismdl, 25 ff. 



FORM AND CEREMONY 471 

rhythmic element lives yet in our commonest sur- 
vivals, — as when children determine who shall be 
the mysterious "It" of a game. So the song or 
even the murmur of sorcery ; so the " backward mut- 
ter of dissevering power " to undo the operation of 
magic itself. If we could only trace aright histori- 
cal connections, we should find everywhere about 
us, imbedded in custom or tradition, the shards of 
our broken heathendom. Of these, the saddest to 
study are those that come under the head of witch- 
craft, — a subject that lies quite aside from our pres- 
ent purposes. 



472 * GERMANIC OKIGINS 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE HIGHER MOOD 

Public and private standard of morals — Ideals of the race — 
Esthetics — Germanic faith — Notions about a future life — Con- 
clusion. 

Conduct is of prime importance in any modern 
notion of religion, — that is to say, the conduct of 
each individual. Early religion looks to the conduct 
of a tribe or race in its relation to ancestral spirits or 
protecting gods ; grave and altar must be served after 
the established form. So, too, the family must, as 
a family, observe the rites of traditional cult. Stand- 
ards of conduct for persons would therefore take this 
collective and formal character, and the ideal virtues 
of our forefathers must have followed the same broad 
way. 

To be sure, this statement will not go unchal- 
lenged. Professor Robertson Smith, in his book on 
Early Semitic Religion^ assumes not the family, but 
the kin as social unit, and says that the earliest 
kin-bond was maternal. Hence was developed the 
origin of personal ethics ; while, on the other hand, 
religion itself " arose out of a perception of the rela- 

1 Unfortunately, only a summary can be used here, taken from The 
Spectator for October 11, 1890. 



THE HIGHER MOOD 473 

tions of the community to its environment animate 
and inanimate " ; nor was it originally "a trembling 
worship of dismal and malevolent deities," but rather 
was addressed to friendly gods. 

However all this may be, a study of Germanic tradi- 
tions and literature will show us that such scheme of 
ethics as our ancestors possessed was what we have 
supposed would naturally result from a state founded 
on the family basis. Of this foundation we" have abun- 
dant evidence ; and the ethical system is in full har- 
mony with the constitution of the state. The heroic 
legends of Germany will help us in this respect ; for 
here shine in a setting of poetry the ideals of the race 
itself. Poetry gives us just the necessary mixture of 
imagination working in lines laid down by the devel- 
opment of the race, and facts which are taken from 
the records of its best moments. Hence the ideal 
virtues in the ideal figures of the song. Such is the 
view of Uhland in his valuable researches ; ^ and with 
this purpose we examine the records. As most con- 
spicuous among the private virtues we find gener- 
osity, hospitality,^ and chastity. Chastity is emi- 
nently an individual virtue ; but a moment's reflec- 
tion will show that it is absolutely bound up with 
the prosperity of such a family life as Tacitus 
describes to us. As the standing reproach of a man 
is cowardice, so we find that when women are reviled, 
like the goddesses in the LoJcasenna, it is for unchas- 
tity. The actual evidence for the virtue of Germanic 

1 Kl. Schr. I. 211 ff . may be found a siicciuct statement of his views. 

2 As to hospitality combined with sense of national honor, see the 
account of the Gepidae, who refused to give up a guest at the command 
of Justinian, and so went to certain ruin. See also Dahn, Urgeschichte 
d. germ, und rom. Volker, I. 39. 



474 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

women is strong, and has been discussed above ; for 
manly purity, as well as the innocent frankness which 
governed the relations of younger men and women, 
Csesar gives some valuable testimony. Along with 
this must go the fact that indecency has almost 
no footing whatever in Germanic literature of the 
heathen type.^ When obscenities occur, they are put 
in the mouth of giants, uncouth, raw, and despicable 
creatures. Some of this freedom from indecency, in- 
deed, may go to the credit of monkish scribes ; but 
not all of it. A stern purity, native and rough, is 
the note of old Germanic song. 

Softness of temper was not a Germanic virtue. 
Beowulf is extraordinarily mild and patient, as befits 
a hero-god of such sunny origins ; but much nearer 
to the Germanic heart was Thor, "impiger, iracun- 
dus, inexorabilis, acer," with those knuckles whiten- 
ing as he grasps the hammer in rage, — a touch that 
mightily pleased Carlyle. We therefore exclude pa- 
tience from our eulogy, but all the more strenuously 
may we insist upon Germanic loyalty and faithful- 
ness. Germanic family-life, as Uhland remarks,^ had 
two periods. First is the settled or partly settled life 
described by Tacitus ; the group of buildings by and 
for themselves, isolated, the abode of a single family 
or minor clan. Second is the artificial family of the 
period of conquest, the chieftain and his followers 
forming a new relation. In both cases, however, loy- 
alty is the cardinal virtue. We have seen above how 
stern were the demands upon this loyalty in the case 
of blood-relationship, and how equally binding was 

1 See Liter aturhlatt f. germ, und rom. Phil., February, 1891, sp. 47. 

2 Kl. Schr. I. 214 ff. ' 



THE HIGHER MOOD 475 

the obligation when leader and vassal took the place 
of kin and kin.^ Loyalty is the key-note of Germanic 
life and Germanic wtue ; but it is a collective rather 
than an individual characteristic, and expresses itself 
in literature not by sharply drawn men and women, 
but by types. Not only do we miss the devotion of 
mediaeval chivalry and the tenderness of modern love, 
but even the charms of friendship find no room in 
hearts filled with the obligations of the warrior and 
the clansman ; Germanic traditions tell us no tale of 
Orestes and Pylades. So, too, with the other graces 
of life. The remorseless strain and struggle of that 
time left little or no leisure, even if they had found 
the desire, for one to cultivate the sense of beauty 
or any other of those feelings which we comprehend 
under the modern name of aesthetics. Crude forms 
of art, like the paint upon a house or the woven lines 
of an arm-ring, incipient adornment of person or of 
weapon, — these the German knew ; but the sense of 
quiet beauty was foreign to his mind. In his poetry, 
in those kennings which gave him almost his only 
chance for description, we get a few glimpses at the 
nature which surrounded him ; but it is the dash of 
waves, the hiss of hail and snow upon a wintry ocean, 
howl of wind and storm, sweep of huge bird of prey 
hovering " dewy-feathered " in the air and eager for 
carrion, — battle-pieces, we must call them, but no 
still-life at all. Save in one timid and perhaps inter- 
polated picture of a sunny landscape, the quiet which 
reigns in the Germanic description of nature is a 
quiet of desolation. Such is the powerful passage in 

1 " Die Treue, der Gnindtrieb des germanischen Lebens." Uhland, 
p. 221. 



476 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

which Hrothgar describes to Beowulf the haunt of 
Grendel,^ — 

a dismal land, 
wolf-haunted cliffs and windy headlands, 
fen-ways fearful, where flows the stream 
from mountains gliding 'neath gloom of the rocks, 
underground flood. Not far is it hence, 
by measure of miles, that the mere expands, 
and o'er it the frost-bound forest hanging, 
sturdily rooted, o'ershadows the wave. 
In the dark of night is a dread to see, 
fire on the waters : no wight so brave 
of the sons of men who will search that flood ! 
Nay, though the heath-pacer, harried by dogs, 
the horned stag, this holt should seek, 
by hounds far driven, — his dear life here, 
on the brink he yields ere he braves the plunge 
in those dismal waters ! 

Moreover, the placid beauty of harvest seems to 
have been as unfamiliar as the fruits which it is 
meant to bring; "they know," says Tacitus, "as 
little of the name as of the bounties of Autumn." 
Vernon Lee, in her Euphorion^'^ points out that this 
ignoring of autumnal beauty continued through the 
middle ages, despite their extravagant and ceaseless 
laud of spring : " Of autumn ... of the standing 
corn, the ripening fruit of summer, . . .the middle 
ages seem to know nothing." But we must return 
to our study of Germanic ethics. 

As we approach modern times, the primitive 
ideals, while not removed, are changed. The heroic 
stature is lost, and we begin to meet maxims of 
prudence, bits of shrewd ad^dce, canny standards of 

1 B4010. 1357 ff. 2 I. 119. 



THE HIGHER MOOD 47 T 

action where the right is the practical. Even impul- 
sive Scandinavia shows this. Maurer, in his well- 
known work,^ gives a summary of Norse ethics in the 
heathen age. He finds on the one hand prudence, 
shrewdness, every-day wisdom ; on the other, a sense 
of duty and the necessity of following this line irre- 
spective of consequences. Maxims of life begin to 
meet us, even in this period, of a character surpris- 
ingly like the philosophical wisdom of the middle 
ages, with its passion for the golden mean. Pru- 
dence is extolled with the fervor of a Juvenal. 
Keep the " mean " ; avoid gluttony and drunkenness 
(a parlous reference) ; trust not in riches ; do not talk 
with fools ; never confide in women ; ^ and above all, 
remember that nothing can turn aside the weapon of 
fate. Vengeance is a religion, and human suffering 
excites little pity; it was treachery that called for 
actual disgrace and blame. Cruelty was not so bad 
if it were only open ; although the fearful scenes at 
the court of Ermanric, so famous in our old heroic 
legends, seem to have roused a shudder in all Ger- 
manic bosoms. The little poem about Deor, our old- 
est English lyric, speaks of Ermanric's "wolfish" 
disposition. The sneak, the secret foe, is detestable ; 
and hidden treachery is crime of crimes. Steal if 
you can and must; but steal openly. Generosity 
and hospitality are, of course, cardinal virtues. Most 
important of all, we must note that these various 
virtues stand in almost no connection with the re- 

1 Bek. d. Norw. St. II. 148 ff. Gnomic poetry was very popular in 
Germanic literature, and is evidently based on old traditions. Several 
poems of the sort are to be found in Norse and Anglo-Saxon. 

2 Havamdl, 83-89. Mostly, as Meyer remarks {Altgerm. Poesie, 
p. 44), the Gnomic poetry describes rather than commands. 



478 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

ligion of the day, which was a matter of ceremony 
and ritual.^ 

What has been said of Norse ethics will largely 
apply to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. As time goes 
on, our laws betray the increase of that sense for 
practical things and that thrifty independence which 
have clung to the Englishman everywhere. To mend 
bridges and roads, to pay taxes, to fight in the 
militia, to be allowed to rule unimpeded over his 
private affairs, — this standard of duty develops 
itself early in English history. For the more per- 
sonal side of ethics, it is under Christian influences 
that we get our first full view of the Englishman; 
nevertheless, if the tender shoot is to be judged by 
the sturdy tree, the story of such a man as King 
Alfred is enough to shed back a flood of light and 
praise upon the earliest growth of English char- 
acter. 

Aside from ethics proper, there was a decided vein 
of philosophy in the old Germanic temperament. 
The German loved to moralize, to point out the 
ways of fate, to summarize existence ; after his rude 
fashion he made epigrams, and these strung to- 
gether in poetical form^ were doubtless a favorite 
department of his literature. Such a recitation, 
by some graver minstrel, took the place of a later 
court-sermon. 

When restraint of human passion, or extraordinary 
effort of human will, is to be obtained, ethics must 

1 Maurer, II. 188. 

2 With critical reserve we may consider in tliis light the so-called 
" Sermon " of Hrothgar in B^oioulf, as well as the poems on " Man's 
Fate," "Man's Gifts," and the like, to he found in Grein's Bibliothek 
d. Ags. Poesie. 



THE HIGHER MOOD 479 

lean more or less upon religious sanctions; and on 
the border-land of cult and myth we find the province 
of belief in some adjustment of human history, even 
in some scheme of reward or punishment, expected 
in a life to come. Much of this belongs to the doc- 
trine of the soul-land, elsewhere treated.^ It is our 
place to look at the wider conception of a continued 
responsibility for acts of this life. The notion of 
future punishment is nowhere sharply defined ;2 
gloom and desolation are recognized by our fore- 
fathers as characteristic of Hel's kingdom, but it is 
no place of torture. Dietrich, indeed, insisted on 
the Scandinavian water-hell, and based his belief on 
these lines of the sibyl's prophecy where she sees 
"a hall ... by the corpse-strand," where poison- 
drops fall through the roof and the walls are made 
of serpents' backs; and where she sees, "wading 
through raging streams treacherous men and murder- 
ous," and the wolf tearing men asunder. But there 
are strong reasons against accepting this conclusion. 
For a general objection, it may be urged that dualism 
is foreign to the spirit of Germanic heathendom ; and 
that evil powers, as Jacob Grimm remarks, are not 
classified and set in order against the powers of good. 
For a specific reason, we may call in question the 
originality of the quotation just made from the 
Yoluspa. Bugge is by no means alone in his attack, 
and a defence by Miillenhoff, the strongest of his 

1 See p. 326 f. 

2 Maurer denies it altogether for Scandinavian heathendom. BeTc. d. 
Norio. St. II, 74. That "general Germanic belief" in the end of the 
world by fire, the Muspelli, is now asserted by Bugge to have been 
imported along with other scraps of the new faith. For the older view, 
see Miillenhoff, Deutsche Alterthumslcunde, V. I. 6G f. 



480 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

faith, has failed to convince the best critics that in 
the Voluspa we are dealing with untainted Germanic 
heathendom. E. H. Meyer in his book on this sub- 
ject,^ has come to conclusions as fatal as those of 
Bugge. So we are forced to reject this part of the 
sibyl's prophecy from our notion of Germanic faith. 
The make-up of the picture, and the conception of 
misery as united with darkness, wet, and cold, are 
undoubtedly genuine ; but the moral assumption is 
not so. 

It is true, however, that our ancestors, like their 
Aryan kinsmen the world over, believed in an under- 
world.2 The literal caves of the dead were extended 
into a figurative kingdom of the dead, the realm of 
Hel, the " concealing " goddess. Dark, cheerless, cold, 
this was no place of torture.^ She herself is relentless, 
and gives up no soul that once enters her domain; 
but punishments — and the Germanic mind would 
have been quick enough to heap them in fullest 
measure, had they belonged to the conception of the 
place — are nowhere to be found. So, too, with 
rewards. Under the stress of Viking life, with its 
ceaseless brawls and revel, its courage and danger, 
grew up a belief which has been sung and told into 
a system, and now stands in most people's eyes as 
the corner-stone of old Norse faith, — the belief in 
that Valhalla whither Odin's maidens led the slain, 
where fight and feast alternated in an agreeable per- 
spective down the future, and whither no thrall or 
man of peace might win. In point of fact, much of 

1 Voluspa, Berlin, 1888. 

2 SchuUerus, Zur Kritik d. ValhoUglauhens, P. B. Beitr. XII. 258. 
^D. M. 6G7. 



THE HIGHER MOOD 481 

this amiable belief is of foreign, or at least of very 
late origin.^ The oldest lays of the Edda know 
nothing about it ; the old sagas know nothing about 
it.2 It is a strange medley, like the life that gave it 
currency, and was fashioned into its present shape in 
the ninth or tenth century. The wandering seamen 
and warriors brought back scraps of foreign lore, 
incongruous and wonderful bits of legend; as they 
told their tales, huge temples or churches which 
they had actually seen, blended in memory with 
half-understood teachings of the new religion, and 
all was set in the Norse framework, Norse verse, 
and Norse manner. One writer goes so far as to 
say that the Valhalla, a golden hall with count- 
less doors and stately outline, is a loan from the 
Revelation of St. John, — is the New Jerusalem 
in Scandinavian disguise.^ One suggestion, how- 
ever, made long ago by Wilhelm Miiller,* deserves 
respectful mention. He regards Valhalla as the type 
of a palace where earthly kings of that period were 
wont to dwell, surrounded by their retainers. In 
this new Valhalla would be a " magnified and non- 
natural " Germanic hall, embellished by the dazzled 
and confused fancy, the half-comprehended world- 
lore, of the Viking age. 

But let us go back to our primitive German. 
What faith had he about a hereafter ? Vaguely, — 
as indeed all his philosophy lacked sharp defini- 
tions, — the German believed in a future world of 

1 Schullerus and H. Petersen, work quoted, p. 98 f. 

2 Schullerus, p. 241. 

3 Schullerus, p. 267. He assumes oral tradition, not book-lore, as 
source of the borrowing. ^ System, p. 394. 



482 GERMANIC ORIGINS 

spirits.^ Of his own doing in that world he had very- 
dim notions ; his care during life was to soothe and 
coax his future fellow-citizens who had gone before 
him. Without talent or taste for introspection, he 
nevertheless began in the earliest moments of awak- 
ening thought to muse about the issues of life and 
death. In his rough, blundering way, he doubtless 
did what De Quincey in a memorable passage de- 
clares all men must do who think at all about these 
things, — he must have held "some tranquillizing 
belief as to the future balances and the hieroglyphic 
meanings of human suffering." That is all we can 
say. 

In speaking of Germanic belief, we have already 
crossed that border which separates the real from the 
ideal. But further we may not follow our ancestors 
into the ideal world which every active and aspiring 
race has fashioned, — the world of poetry and legend 
and myth. Such a subject demands a volume for 
itself, and needs to be studied with more than ordi- 
nary care. So far as explanation and interpretation 
are concerned, it is easy to make the shattered relics 
of Germanic myth tell almost any tale we may desire 
to hear. Inexorable criticism and thorough philo- 
logical knowledge of this material, joined with the 
insight, imagination, and wide comparative glances 
of a master of literary history, are indispensable for 
the man who at this late hour is fain to tread in the 
path marked out by Jacob Grimm and almost untrod- 
den since his day. Myth-mongers there have been 
in plenty, — men with "interpretations," who will 

1 There is no doubt of this. See Miillenhoff, Deutsche Alterth. V. 



THE HIGHER MOOD 483 

tell us that Norse Idun was grass, or hay, or a star, 
or poetry; but men who sought the heart of Ger- 
manic myth itself have not appeared, — save one. 
Irascible, arrogant, Miillenhoff nevertheless redeemed 
his many faults by dint of labor, strength, and a 
rugged loyalty to his own ideals. He was of the old 
breed of scholars; he loved poetry as well as para- 
digms; and no keener or more loving glance than 
his ever sought to pierce the mist of our Germanic 
origins. 



INDEX 



Adultery, 131, 138 f., 160 f., 169, 184. 

Africans, 162, 209, 347. 

Age, 199 f., 204 f . 

Agriculture, 39 ff., 46 ff., 72, 129, 

410. 
Alamannians, 19, 271, 292. 
Alaric, 7, 321, 463. 
Alboin, 7, 120, 196. 
Alderman, 278 f . 
Alfred, 44, 274, 478. 
AUiteration, 3, 24, 113, 194, 468. 
All-Souls, 5, 355. 
Altar, 441. 
Amazons, 133, 142 f . 
Amber, 11, 18, 84, 214. 
Ancestor-Worship, 137, 169, 171, 

201, 313, 346 ff., 366, 368, 370, 

384, 404, 416, 420. 
Angles, 20, 25, 29. 
Ariovistus, 14, 466. 
Arminius, 10, 286. 
Armor, 253. 
Arthur, 190, 325, 380. 
Arval, 354. 

Aryans, 31 ff., 61, 127. 
Assembly, 273, 291 ff., 430. 
Attack, see Tactics. 
Attila, 26, 142, 332 f ., 354, 361. 

Baduhenna, 438, 441. 

Balder, 63, 323, 423, 438. 

Banishment, 171 f . 

Barbarism, 46, 80. 

Barrow, 310 f ., 317, 348. 

Bastarnae, 12. 

Batavians, 27, 255. 

Bathing, 59, 77 f., 123, 356, 393, 397. 

Bavarians, 19, 271. 



Beauty, 65 f,, 475. 

Beda, 71, 104, 352. 

Beer, 71 f., 93, 103, 115, 454. 

Bees, 43 f . 

Belgium, 17. 

Berserker, 230. 

Blonde, 61 f. 

Blood, 175, 456. 

Blood-brotherhood, 173, 409. 

Boar, 433. 

Boar's head, 256. 

Boat, see Ship. 

Boniface, 38, 40, 388. 

Booty, 219. 

Boundaries, 54 f., 312, 386, 463. 

Bower, 96, 99, 102. 

Bride, see Wife. 

Brittia, 327. 

Bronze Age, 34, 48, 84, 209, 243, 

308. 
Burg, 99, 102 f . 
Burgundians, 19. 
Burial, 307 ff., 322 f. 
Burning, 307 ff., 315. 
Butter, 71. 
Byrhtnoth, 237 f., 253. 

Caste, 62. 
Cat, 33, 435. 
Cattle, 41 f., 207, 223. 
Cavalry, 254 f . 

Celt, 2 f., 61, 72, 120, 124,209,343 f. 
Ceorl, 246, 280. 
Chant, 451, 470. 
Character, 16, 472 ff. 
Charlemagne, 28, 83, 126, 136. 
Charms, 45 f., 350, 369, 373, 376, 
394, 399, 405 ff., 423, 450, 470. 

485 



486 



INDEX 



Chastisement, see Punishments. 
Chastity, 134 f., 159, 473 f. 
Chatti, 22, 29, 87, 91. 
Chauci, 22, 27 f., 218, 220. 
Cheesewell, 70, 390. 
Chemsci, 29, 245, 272. 
Christianity, 8 &., 17, 20, 133, 283, 

309, 331, 342 f . 
Christian-Latin Literature, 9 f . 
Cimbrians, 13, 78, 245, 448. 
Cities, 90 f . 
Citizen, 226. 
CUmate, 36, 56 f . 
Clothing, 78 ff., 449 f. 
Clouds, 42. 
Com, 443. 
Cold, 36, 56, 66, 93. 
Color, 457, 475. 
Columbanus, 73. 
Comitatus, 261 ff., 278, 474. 
Commerce, 11 f., 211 ff., 288, 432, 

449. 
Complexion, 63 f . 
Consciousness, 11. 
Conyersion, 17, 19, 342. 
Corsnxd, 70, 303. 
Courage, 58, 138, 227 ff. 
Cowardice, 239 f . 
Creed, 336 ff. 
Cult, 25, 42, 69, 73, 137, 171, 213, 

249, 278, 295, 336 ff., 346, 409, 450, 

477 f. 
Culture, 32, 34, 205. 
Culture-hero, 49. 
Cup, 120. 
Curse, 470. 
Cymry, 13. 

Dance, 198, 359, 429, 451 f . 

Danes, 1, 20, 25, 27. 

Day, 293, 413. 

Dead, see Ancestor-Worship. 

Death, 199 ff., 230 f., 305, 329. 

Decoration, 97, 105, 474. 

Democracy, 271, 273, 291 f . 

Deor, 52 f . 

Dice, 123. 

Dts, 370. 

Divination, see Charms and Lots. 

Divorce, 138. 



Dog, 33, 71. 

Dower, 155 f . 

Dream, 122. 

Drinking, 74 ff., 117,1201. 

Drusus, 15, 361. 

Dualism, 479. 

Dunstan, 470. 

Earl, 62, 278. 

Earth, 405 ff., 408 f. 

Eclipse, 410. 

Education, 197 f., 227. 

Elves, 37, 374, 378 ff., 382. 

Emotion, 336. 

Engelland, 328. 

Erce, 408. 

Ermanric, 477. 

Ethics, 136, 336, 359, 472 f., 477. 

Exogamy, 145 f . 

Exports, 213 ff. 

Exposure, 187 ff., 325. 

Eyes, 58. 

Falconry, 124. 

Family, 162 ff., 472, passim. 

Fatalism, 235. 

Father, 168 ff., 172, 185 ff. 

Feasts, 66 f., 112 f., 121 ff., 357. 

Ferocity, 180, 230. 

Fetch, 362. 

Feud, 111, 179 ff . 

Finns, 31, 140. 

Fire, 96, 400, 456. 

Flet, 126 f . 

Flyting, 76, 114. 

Folk-Moot, 38, 273, 291 ff., 361. 

Food, 66 ff. 

Forests, 35, 37, 382. 

Fosete, 438 f . 

Founders, 1. 

Fowls, 43. 

Framea, 250 f . 

Franks, 16, 19, 29, 130, 181, 244, 

254, 271, 290, 300, 461. 
Freedman, 282 f. 
Freedom, 28, 285. 
Freeman, 153, 280 f., 301. 
Freyja, 89, 431, 435. 
Freyr, 19, 66, 156, 216, 419, 430 ff., 

447. 



INDEX 



487 



Friendship,! 475. 

Frigg, 435 f. 

Frisians, 19, 25, 27, 68, 185, 297, 330, 

415, 461. 
Fruits, 51, 67. 
Funeral, 306 ff., 329 f., 358 f. 

Gambling, 123. 

Games, 123, 198, 331 f., 429. 

Geography, 20 f., 25 f., 30. 

Germania, 20 &., passim. 

Germanic, 2 ff., 5, passim. 

Germanicus, 15, 242, 460. 

Germans, 12, 22 f., 30, 57, 65, pas- 
sim,. 

Gerthr, 66, 470. 

Giants, 243, 397, 474. 

Gifts, 165 ff., 173, 193. 

Gilpcioide, 76. 

Gods, 342, 374, 416 ff. 

Gold, 84 ff., 105, 444. 

Goldsmith, 210 f . 

Goths, 19, 64, 131, 197, 201, 203, 296, 
460. 

Graves, 107, 149, 313 f., 348, 353, 
442. 

Gudrun, 55, 302. 

Guests, 165 f . 

Gunnar, 231. 

Hag, 373 f . 

Hail, 405. 

Hair, 59 ff., 183, 281. 

Hall, 96, 103 ff., 481. 

Hammer, 156, 254. 

Hanging, 239 f . 

Healing, 224, 423. 

"Heathenship," 384, 400. 

Heimdall, 62, 429. 

Hel, 142, 305, 326, 353. 

Helgi and Sigrun, 148 ff., 361. 

Helgoland, 438 f. 



Heliand, 41, 89, 171, 228, passim. 

Henotheism, 417. 

Heraldry, 252. 

Hercules, 426, 441. 

Herminones, 24. 

Hermunduri, 29. 

Heroic Legend, 5, 10, 20, 278, 473. 

Heruli, 83. 

Hessians, 19. 

High-Seat, 106 f., 428. 

Hilde, 216. 

Hildebrand Lay, 9, 87. 

Hilleviones, 24. 

Hludana, 438. 

Holmgang, 55, 183. 

Honey, 43 f., 175, 190, 455. 

Horse, 40 f., 167, 192, 215, 229, 254, 

309, 316, 323, 457 f., 468. 
Hospitality, 161 ff., 212, 473. 
Hostages, 130, 137. 
House, 92 ff., 313. 
House-Spirit, 369. 
Hrotsvith, 133. 
Humor, 2. 
Hunting, 124 f . 

Iceland, 187 f., 192, 203, 296, 298, 

322, 341, 447. 
Ideals, 473. 

Images, 427, 444 f., 447, 455. 
Immortality, 335, 343, 481. 
Imports, 213. 
Incantation, see Charm. 
Indigenous Kaces, 31, 286. 
Individualism, 344. 
Ing, 25, 216, 434. 
Ingaevones, 24 f., 27 ff., 217, 434, 

442. 
Inheritance, 131 f . 
Ireland, 219. 
Irminsul, 447. 
Iron, 213, 391. 



1 The statement of the text is little, if at all, affected by euch a case as that of 
Walter and Hagen in the Waltharius Lay. For the sake of their old friendship, 
Hagen long refuses, even at the bidding of his king, to fight Walter; and the lat- 
ter does his best in the combat to spare Hagen's nephew. The sentiment of the 
situation, however, is largely due to the poet, who had plenty of classical models 
to influence him; and the facts are easily referred to the blood-brotherhood, 
upon which, as G-rimra points out {Lateinische Gedichte des X und XI JH. — 
p. 78), the heroes had long before entered. 



488 



INDEX 



Iron Age, 34, 209, 308. 
Istsevones, 24, 437. 

Jarl, 62, 278. 

Jester, 107. 

Jutes, 20, 25, 29, 186. 

Kennings, 221, 246, 275, 315, 335 f ., 

475. 
Kin, 144 ff., 170 f., 173, 351. 
King, 99, 258, 270 fe., 292, 299, 462. 
"Knee," 144. 

Lamissio, 191. 

Land, 51 f., 223 f. 

Language, 2. 

Law, 168, 296, 300, 387 f . 

Leaders, 257, 262. 

Leek, 68. 

Libation, 454. 

Lightning, 97. 

Limes, 15. 

Linen, 78, 206. 

Literature, 4 f., 8 f., 482. 

Lohengrin, 49, 190. 

Lokasenna, 76, 97. i 

Loki, 76, 174, 418. 

Lombards, 19, 26, 60, 191, 193, 271, 

386. 
Lots, 295, 385, 424, 451, 465. 
Love, 65, 1471,153. 
Loyalty, 261, 264, 475. 

Magic, 140, 391 f., 404, 469. 
Marcomanni, 94, 271. 
Mark, see Boundary. 
Marks, 128. 

Marriage, 151 ff., 159 f., 287. 
Mar si, 77. 
Masses, 360. 

Maternal Inheritance, 132. 
Mead, 44, 72. 
Medway, 72. 
Melancholy, 36, 330. 
Metals, 86 ff. 
Michael, St., 362 f. 
Minstrel, 52, 112. 
Monarchy, 271 f., 291. 
Money, 166, 223. 
Monotheism, 417. 



Moon, 33, 410, 412. 
Morning-Gift, 153. 
Music, 259, 394. 
Mutilation, 171, 287, 298. 
Myth, 26, 48 f., 62, 159, 195, 216, 
325, 337 f., 346, 482. 

Names, 23, 90, 193 ff., 380, 385, 396, 

419, 421, 427, 429, 434. 
Nature, 36, 366 ff., 399 f., 475 f. 
Necromancy, 348, 350 f . 
Nehalennia, 436 f . 
Nerthus. 42, 132, 431. 
Nialssaga, 97. 
Night, 34, 413. 
Nightmare, 364, 383. 
Niorthr, 431. 
Nobles, 277 f . 
Nomad, 39 ff., 67. 
Norns, 142. 
North, 417. 

Oak, 38, 387 f., 427. 
Oath, 301. 
Obscenity, 474. 
Odin, see Woden. 
Offering, see Sacrifice. 
Ordeal, 183 f ., .301 f . 
Ornaments, 84 ff., 97, 428. 
Outlaw, 298, 300. 

Ownership of land, 50 f., 128, 223 f., 
279. 

Painted Houses, 97, 106. 

Parricide, 172. 

Pastures, 40. 

Patron Saint, 361 f . 

Paved Roads, 98. 

Peace, 431, 449. 

Perspective, 10, 125 f. 

Petersen, 419. 

Philosophy, 477, 478. 

Phoenicians, 12. 

Poetry, 2, 5, 8, 36, 101, 112 f., 119., 

475, 482. 
Poisons, 68, 424. 
Polygamy, 136. 
Prayer, 450. 

Priests, 273, 277, 294, 448 ff. 
Prime of Life, 201. 



INDEX 



489 



Professions, 224 f . 
Property, 128. 
Prose, 3, 99. 
Prostration, 441, 451 f. 
Punishments, 186 f., 239, 298, 479. 
Pytheas of Marseilles, 12, 67, 72. 

Quadi, 94. 
Queen, 117, 276 f . 

Rain, 392. 
Red Hair, 64. 

Relationship, Degrees of, 144 f . 
Religion, see Cult, 336 ff., 477 f. 
Rhyme, 3, 113. 
Rings, 88 f ., 318, 445. 
Rock Pictures, 48. 
Rome, 7 fe., 15. 

Ruedeger, Episode of, 176, 267. 
Riigen, 453f.,458. 
Runes, 134, 140, 206, 215, 249, 376, 
405, 421, 468. 

Sacrifice, 321, 452 fe., 455 f ., 464 f . 
Salic Law, 128, 130 f., 281, 296, 300. 
Salt, 33, 69, 213, 392. 
Saxnot (Saxneat), 244, 429. 
Saxons, 19, 25 f., 28, 68, 219, 244, 

258, 330, 355, 461. 
Saxon Shore, 26. 
Sceaf, 48 f., 216. 
Scepticism, 8, 340 f . 
Scyld, 48 f., 190, 323 f. 
Sea, 36, 221 f., 396. 
Seafaring, 216 ff., 422. 
Seasons, 414, 476. 
Semnones, 429, 441, 460. 
Sentiment, 65, 153, 169, 345, 320. 
Shields, 251 f . 
Ship, 7, 217, 222, 325, 368, 432, 448, 

463. 
Ship-Burial, 217, 322, 326. 
Sibyl, 139 f., 350, 371,450. 
Siegfried, 19, 125, 147, 303. 
Sigambri, 232. 
SkuU as Cup, 120. 
Sky-Worship, 410. 
Slave, 62, 213, 283 ff., 428. 
Smith, 62, 207 f . 
Soap, 59. 



Soissons, Vase of, 290. 

Songs, 5, 25, 112 f., 259, 451. 

Sources, 5. 

Spinning, 82 f . 

Spirit, 326 ff., 479, 481 f. 

Spiritualism, 348. 

Stars, 413. 

Stature, 57. 

Stone Age, 34, 48, 308. 

Stone Buildings, 91, 95. 

Strand-Ward, 103, 220. 

Stranger, 288. 

Suevi, 29, 454. 

Suicide, 203, 232, 306. 

Sun-Worship, 399, 410. 

Swamp, 35 f. 

Swan-Maidens, 395. 

Swine, 40. 

Sword, 210, 243 ff. 

Sword-Dance, 198, 429. 

Tactics, 242, 256, 258, 260, 421, 446. 

Tanfana, 437, 443. 

Tapestries, 107 f . 

Taxes, 289. 

Temper, 37 f., 58, 74, 119, 474. 

Temples, 440 ff. 

Teutons, 13. 

Thor, 55, 62, 68, 156 f., 314, 323, 

342, 419, 425 ff., 447, 464, 474. 
Thunder, 426, 
Thuringians, 19, 29. 
Tin, 11. 

Tius, 420 f ., 428 ff. 
Tomb, 107, 133, 313, 354. 
Trade, see Commerce. 
Traders, 213. 
Treasure, 100, 107, 317. 
Trees, 37 ff., 240 f., 293, 382 ff., 

385 ff., 425, 440, 442. 
Trial by Battle, 143, 182, 184, 301. 
Type of German, 17 f. 

Underground Houses, 92 f., 167. 

Underworld, 36 f., 480. 

Upsala, Temple at, 425, 441, 445, 

447. 

Valhalla, 149, 305, 480 f. 
Valkyria, 141, 148, 361, 372. 



490 



INDEX 



Vandals, 19. 

Varus, Defeat of, 286, 460. 

Vehmgerichte, 240, 296. 

Veleda, 139f.,384. 

Vigils, 352. 

Viking, 219, 305, 354, 425, 463. 

Virtues, 169 f., 473 ff. 

Wake, 357 f . 

Wandering, 5, 11, 26. 

Warrior, 52, 81, 129, 226 ff., 242 ff., 

306. 
Water-Hell, 37, 479. 
Water-Spirits, 394 f . 
Water-Worship, 389 f., 397, 399 f. 
Wayland, 53, 111, 120 f ., 208. 
Weapons, 196, 209, 227 f., 242 &., 

318 f., 379, 422. 
Weaving, 82 f., 108, 206. 
Wedding, 145 ff., 151 &., 156 ff., 435. 
Week, Days of, 418 f . 



Wells, 78, 389 ff. 

Welsh, 23, 279, 283. 

Werewolf, 364. 

Wergild, 146, 174, 178" f., 197, 211, 

280, 284, 299. 
Widow, 160. 
Wife, 45, 117, 134, 145 f., 154, 170, 

186, 319 f., 400. 
Wind, 367, 377, 398, 404. 
Wine, 72 f., 103, 212. 
Winter, 36, 415, 475. 
Witchcraft, 144, 373, 375 f., 468. 
Woden, 48, 74, 240, 256, 314, 342, 

350, 356, 377, 384, 419 ff., 447, 454. 
Woman, 66, 117, 130 ff., 137, 300, 

370. 
Wooden Houses, 92. 
Wool, 33, 79. 
Wyrd, 111, 236, 362, 371 f. 

Yggdrasill, 387. 



Typography by J. S. Gushing & Co., Boston. 
Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston. 



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AN ADDITION TO THEODOR MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME. 

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